It took me months to realize this…

I've been working on my first app for close to 6 months, but what I've learned in the last few weeks makes me regret all of that time.

I've been getting into a flow of shipping small but useful features/improvements.

Before this I had a shell of a product — lots of functionality that was difficult to use.

The biggest mistake I made was trying to build a "platform" instead of one polished feature.

I worked for weeks on a page builder (that I've since abandoned) and a digital product system without validating it's something people wanted to use.

The core functionality of my app is shortening links, yet the analytics for them have been overly simplistic.

I should have made the experience of creating and tracking links world class before I bothered building anything else.

If I were to start a new project, I would keep it as simple as possible and build one really good feature.

The goal is to solve a single problem as best as you can.

Entire businesses can be built on that premise.

Focusing on a single use case makes the product inherently more useful.

I've put off customer outreach because I know the app is still too difficult to use.

If I had one avatar that could take one or two actions (e.g., create a link and check its performance), building and testing that flow would be much easier.

If you're working on an app right now, the best advice I can give you is to hone in on one person who could derive value from it.

You're more likely to win by solving one problem exceptionally well than half-assing ten.

Have a great week.

Cole

P.S. If you found this letter helpful, please consider sharing it with a friend :)