A few weeks ago, I started building Lifto, a video-first product discovery platform where founders showcase their products through short demo reels instead of static screenshots.

Today we reached our first milestone:

• 🎉 100 registered founders
• 🎥 55 demo reels uploaded
• ❤️ Hundreds of interactions across the platform

It might not sound like much compared to huge startups, but getting the first 100 users taught me a lot.

A few things that surprised me:

1. Building was easier than distribution.

I spent weeks coding the platform.

I've spent even more time trying to get people to actually use it.

2. People love giving feedback.

I've received everything from bug reports to design critiques.

Sometimes it stings, but almost every piece of feedback has made the product better.

3. Community is harder than software.

Getting someone to upload their own product is one challenge.

Getting them to also watch, like, and comment on other founders' demos is a completely different problem.

That's probably the biggest challenge I'm working on now.

4. Demo videos explain products far better than screenshots.

This was the original hypothesis behind Lifto, and it's been reinforced over and over.

People understand what a product does in 20–30 seconds of video much faster than by reading a long description.

I'm still very early in this journey, but I'm excited to keep improving the platform and learning along the way.

If you've built a marketplace or community product before, I'd love to hear:

What's the hardest part of getting users to contribute instead of just consume?