My website design looked like crap.

I was ready to launch my first Google Ads campaign for Rippl when I took an honest look at my landing page. Bare bones design, engineer-friendly (aka lifeless) copy, zero visual appeal. I realized I was about to pay for traffic to a website that would convince exactly nobody to sign up.

I built Rippl before I validated the idea.

I started building it to solve my own problem: stop wasting time manually repurposing my blog posts for social media. Eventually, I decided to productize it because I assumed I wasn’t the only person dealing with this problem. After launching the product, the new mission was to find customers. For quick and (relatively) cheap validation, I decided to use Google Ads.

That’s when it hit me.

The website design was terrible. The tool worked for me but I’m trying to find customers other than myself. It is the classic builders’ problem: don’t build before you validate. And I did exactly what I knew I shouldn’t have.

The Building Trap

You think you’re building a product, but you’re really hiding. Anyone can build a product. It takes more to build a product that people will pay for. You can hide behind building to avoid the big scary monster: sales and marketing.

Sure, you start by building a tool that solves your own problem. But building for yourself is nothing like building for customers. If you’re the only user, you can cut corners and ignore a lot of problems. When you’re building for customers, you have to address those problems and solve them. The customers are the ones who will pay, not you.

You finish building and everything is working but you didn’t build with customers in mind. The product solves the problem but it looks like an undergraduate project. There’s nothing to convince prospects to stick around and see just how good the product is.

Good functionality does not guarantee a good product. You need the whole picture: functionality and design. If your landing page doesn’t convincingly speak to the value of your product, you’re going to be shipping into the void.

What I Learned About Engineering for Marketing

Building isn't hiding (but I was using it that way)

I told myself I was perfecting the product. Really, I was avoiding the hard part: putting it in front of strangers who might reject it. Building felt productive and safe. Marketing felt scary and uncertain.

With Rippl, I built up false confidence by telling myself "I'm building this to solve my own problem so surely others will see the value." That was all belief and no substance.

Exactly what I shouldn't have done.

The lesson: Building isn't procrastination if you're doing it right. Follow the principle of "good is good enough." If you find yourself adding features with the goal of perfection, you've veered off course.

Your user base isn’t you, even if you solve your own problem first

If you build something for yourself and later decide to productize it, your scope has changed entirely. It's a different game with different rules altogether. When you build for yourself, you can play it fast and loose. Not so when you productize.

The lesson: Be honest with yourself from the beginning about your goal. If you ultimately want to productize and generate revenue, make sure all your choices bear that in mind. Your decisions should prioritize your customers, not you.

Design is marketing

Great design isn’t a feature. It’s expected. I wish we lived in a time where janky frontends still got great results. Unfortunately, great design is so accessible that anything less can be off-putting. Your design doesn’t have to be cutting edge, but it must be enough to keep a prospect interested.

The lesson: All of your design and product choices should ask the question: “Would this keep me engaged if it were someone else’s website?” If the answer is yes, great! If the answer is no, fix it.

"Marketing felt like the scary thing because that's where all the rejection could happen. But that's also where all the reward happens."

Where the Reward Lives

Marketing felt like the scary thing because that's where all the rejection could happen. That's also where all the reward happens. I’ve realized they're the same space.

The bigger lesson is about being ruthlessly honest with myself from the start. What are my real intentions? If I want to build a business, then marketing isn't something I do after building - it's part of the building process from day one. I've been told this by successful people. I've read it in books. I thought I understood it, but fear trumped logic when it came time to actually execute.

I may not execute this perfectly next time. But at least now I know that avoiding marketing is avoiding the whole point.