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Content Summary
The author of Buildpad, a platform used by 10k+ founders, shares 10 common mistakes founders repeatedly make. These include neglecting long-term marketing, entering unknown industries, ignoring distribution, targeting too broad an audience, focusing on scale before first customers, overbuilding, falling in love with solutions over problems, solving generic personal issues, ignoring feedback, and skipping validation. The post emphasizes learning from a large founder community and the need for constant self-reminders to avoid these patterns.
Opinion Analysis
The post presents a widely accepted viewpoint in the SaaS community that founders often repeat fundamental mistakes despite knowing better. The dominant opinion aligns with lean startup principles: validate early, start small, focus on problems, and prioritize initial customers. There is no significant controversy in the comments; the single commenter agrees and admits to falling into some of these traps. The consensus is that these mistakes are common, painful, and require conscious effort to avoid.
SAAS TOOLS
| SaaS | URL | Category | Features/Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Buildpad | https://buildpad.io | Product planning & building platform | Used by 10k+ founders to plan and build products |
USER NEEDS
Pain Points:
- Spending months building but giving up on marketing after a few days/weeks
- Trying to solve problems in industries they know nothing about
- Not considering distribution before building
- Going too broad with their ideas instead of focusing on a specific group
- Focusing too much on getting 1,000 customers instead of the first 5
- Building overly complex solutions instead of starting with one feature
- Falling in love with their solution instead of the problem
- Solving generic personal problems instead of specific, valuable ones
- Not listening to feedback
- Skipping idea validation due to overconfidence
Problems to Solve:
- How to balance building and marketing efforts over time
- How to gain industry knowledge before entering a new market
- How to validate distribution channels early
- How to narrow down target audience effectively
- How to acquire first customers through non-scalable methods
- How to simplify initial product scope
- How to stay problem-focused rather than solution-attached
- How to choose valuable problems to solve
- How to collect and act on user feedback
- How to validate ideas before full development
Potential Solutions:
- Allocate consistent time for marketing alongside development
- Gain industry experience or partner with domain experts
- Research and test distribution strategies before building
- Define a specific niche and problem statement early
- Focus on manual, high-touch customer acquisition for first users
- Launch with a single core feature and iterate
- Pivot approach (e.g., from SaaS to agency) if solution doesn't fit
- Choose less generic, more monetizable personal problems
- Create systematic feedback collection processes
- Use validation techniques like landing pages, interviews, or MVPs
GROWTH FACTORS
Effective Strategies:
- Focus on first 5 customers with non-scalable, high-touch methods
- Start with a one-feature product to reduce complexity and time-to-market
- Validate ideas before investing months in development
- Prioritize problem validation over solution attachment
Marketing & Acquisition:
- Consistent, long-term marketing efforts (not just initial push)
- Early consideration of distribution channels before building
- Targeted marketing to a specific group rather than broad audience
Monetization & Product:
- Build in industries you understand to leverage domain expertise
- Focus on specific, valuable problems rather than generic ones
- Be willing to pivot business model (e.g., SaaS to agency) if needed
User Engagement:
- Actively listen to and incorporate user feedback
- Build a community (10k+ founders using Buildpad) to gather insights
- Share learnings and mistakes transparently to build trust and engagement