If this is your first time reading, I recommend you start with my 6-month challenge and table of contents of weekly posts for the past 8 weeks.
tl;dr It’s been two months now since I first started this six-month challenge. Three main lessons this month: focus, building and interacting with users.
It’s crazy to think another month has flown by. Some days I feel like I’ve accomplished nothing at all, and then I look back at the past several weeks (and their accompanying blog posts) and I remember why it’s a good idea to write a weekly recap. I think to myself, did I really do all those things? I surprise myself constantly in generating new material each blog post.
My week #9 post will be coming tomorrow. I apologize for the somewhat erratic posting schedule. I think I will now change to posting every Monday rather than Sunday.
So now onto the three main lessons this month: focus, building and interacting with users.
I. Focus
II. Building
III. Interacting with users
IV. Top five lessons learned
I like Paul Buchheit’s suggestion of trying to make something that at least someone really loves. As long as you’ve made something that a few users are ecstatic about, you’re on the right track. It will be good for your morale to have even a handful of users who really love you, and startups run on morale. But also it will tell you what to focus on. What is it about you that they love? Can you do more of that? Where can you find more people who love that sort of thing? As long as you have some core of users who love you, all you have to do is expand it. It may take a while, but as long as you keep plugging away, you’ll win in the end.
– Paul Graham, How Not to Die
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