u/Impressive-Ad7089

I’m a strong engineer and a weak marketer. I can build the product; the part that kills me every time is getting anyone to pay for it. Every project I’ve shipped has died at the same spot — not bad code, just zero distribution and honestly some avoidance of the whole “go out and get users” grind.

For those of you who pushed through and got to 10 paying customers, I want the unglamorous version:
• Where did those first 10 actually come from? (cold outreach, a specific community, personal network, a launch, DMs?)
• How long did it take, and how much of it was you manually grinding vs. anything repeatable?
• If you’re also a technical founder — what finally got you to do the distribution part instead of avoiding it?

Not selling anything, genuinely trying to learn from people who’ve done it.

If you’ve gotten to 10 paying customers, I’d love to know:
• How long after launch did #10 happen? (weeks? months? longer?)
• Where did those first 10 actually come from — cold outreach, a launch platform, a community, an existing audience, word of mouth?
• How much of it was you manually hustling vs. something that scaled a bit?

Not selling anything — just trying to understand how the first bit of traction really happens.

Working through my launch checklist and stuck on the demo video part. I got quotes on Fiverr — $300-500 for a 2-3 min video, and honestly I don’t want to record myself on camera either. So I’ve been putting it off for months.
Curious how others handled this:
1. Did you make a demo video for your launch? What did you use?
2. How long did it take / what did it cost?
3. If you skipped it — why, and do you think it hurt your launch?
Not selling anything, genuinely trying to figure out if I’m overthinking this.

Working through my launch checklist and stuck on the demo video part. I got quotes on Fiverr — $200-500 for a 2-3 min video, and honestly I don’t want to record myself on camera either. So I’ve been putting it off for months.
Curious how others handled this:
1. Did you make a demo video for your launch? What did you use?
2. How long did it take / what did it cost?
3. If you skipped it — why, and do you think it hurt your launch?
Not selling anything, genuinely trying to figure out if I’m overthinking this.