What I learned launching my first SaaS to 0 customers
Technical founder here. Built a B2B SaaS (findforce.io - business email finder) for 2 months. Clean architecture, 95% accuracy, competitive pricing. Zero customers, zero revenue.
Key lessons: - Distribution beats product quality - PMF isn't negotiable (perfect tech + no demand = failure) - Customer interviews are the actual work, not optional homework - Audience-first approach matters more than I understood
Also became a father this year (never wanted kids). Interesting contrast: failed at what I planned for, succeeded at what I didn't.
Pivoting to audience-first for next attempt. Curious if others have similar experiences with first product failures and what you did differently the second time.
@meysamazad's retrospective from 2025 captures the critical transition from initial concept to the first dollar of customer revenue.
Discussions analyzed Show HN launch mechanics, cold DM outreach conversion rates, and the psychology of validating customer demand before writing code.
of course distribution is everything. why is it companies like SAP, Oracle, IBM have been production shit-tier tech for 30+ years and they are still billion dollar companies?
I made the same mistake, but I learned that we always need to validate the idea first
well I can't add any links to this submission anymore but here's the longer version:
https://meysam.io/blog/what-i-learned-turning-31/