This is something I’ve written for myself a couple of years back in 2021. I came across it and thought I should share it. Hope you get something out of it as I did.

I really like building stuff. And I think I’m really good at it. The problem it seems that I’m not the best at selling what I build. I feel that any marketing or sales activity is of a lower grade. That I only should focus on creating something I feel great. I don’t want to spend useless time on marketing or on sales.

It seems that this stems from the engineering mindset that anything outside engineering or product work is sub par. And this is unnatural. This is not how nature works and this is not how humans live.

We live by trust, by telling stories and making jokes at and to each other. This humanistic nature can’t be quantified in numbers. I can’t simply engineer my way out for selling anything I create. I need people to need my product. To want it. And then to trust me enough to buy it from me.

I think our small early groups as humans, living in small villages instilled this in us. We’ll befriend people we trust. We’ll buy from the people we befriended and we’ll marry people who are friends of friends. Because we trust them.

As I’m writing, and during the last 2 years I see it again and again. That whenever I should start something new, something outside the craze of Venture Capitals, and completely bootstrapped, the only way to sell is to show people you are trust worthy. Earn people trust and they’ll give you anything.

As I’m writing this, it’s funny because this relate 1 to 1 with Kelly’s idea of the 1000 true fans in the realm of B2C products. You’ll only need a 1000 fans to live a comfortable life. The problem is how to build this base of a 1000 turn fans? I think it should start with the first 10 fans. Then 20, 50, 100, 200, 1000. And that’s what I should do with anything I want to start. Small wins. Localism wins.

I simply don’t want to go the VC way. I want to do anything the same way my grandfather did. With his own money.

Salam, peace.