DEV Community: Markus Kellermann

The Thing You're Avoiding Is Probably the Thing That Matters Most

Markus Kellermann — Sat, 31 Jan 2026 22:43:58 +0000

I spent 2 months optimizing my startup's SEO.

Landing pages. Content. Keywords. All the comfortable stuff.

Then I ran an SEO audit:

I'd been avoiding outreach because it felt awkward. Finding sites. Writing personalized emails. Getting ignored. Following up. Getting ignored again.

But I forced myself to do it anyway.

Results after 30 days:

Google doesn't just rank good content. It ranks content other sites vouch for.

You can have a perfect site and still lose to someone with better backlinks.

The thing I avoided was the thing that actually moved the needle.

Ryan Dahl (creator of Node.js) said it last week: "The era of humans writing code is over."

If anyone can build a product with AI, what's actually left as a moat?

Distribution.

Your SEO (or GEO). Your audience. Your brand. Your ability to get attention in a world full of noise.

The next decade won't be won by the best engineers. It'll be won by the best marketers who can also ship.

Most founders do this. We optimize the comfortable stuff and ignore the uncomfortable stuff.

For me it was backlinks. For others it's cold outreach, posting publicly, or talking to users.

The pattern is the same: the thing you're avoiding is usually the thing that moves the needle.

Building Convo (AI meeting assistant) from Barcelona. Zero ad spend, all organic.

Markus Kellermann — Wed, 21 Jan 2026 17:25:35 +0000

What I Learned Building Two AI Products as a Solo Founder

I studied economics, worked in VC and consulting, then realized I'd rather ship things than analyze them.

So I quit and started building.

Two AI products later -Convo (real-time meeting AI, 500 users) — here's what actually worked

My first version was ugly. Like, really ugly. But it worked, and that's all that mattered.

I shipped in 4 weeks. If I'd waited for "perfect," I'd still be tweaking buttons.

The feedback from real users taught me more in a week than months of planning ever could.

Every feature in Convo exists because a user asked for it — or complained about something.

I don't build what I think is cool. I build what users tell me they need. Then I watch how they actually use it.

The gap between what people say and what they do is where the real insights live.

I've spent exactly $0 on ads for both products.

What worked instead:

Paid acquisition is a treadmill. Organic compounds.

Still building. Still learning. Currently scaling Convo and writing about the journey.

If you're building something too, I'd love to hear what's working for you. Drop a comment or find me on Twitter/X or LinkedIn.

Based in Barcelona. Always happy to chat about product, growth, or building from zero.