Over the past few months, I built a small SaaS project as a solo developer.
It didn’t start as a startup idea. It started as annoyance.
Every time I worked on a side project or launch, the social media part felt repetitive and draining. Writing the same post again for different platforms, logging into multiple dashboards, trying to stay consistent — it always felt like work that didn’t really move things forward.
So I decided to build something for myself.
The idea was simple: prepare one post, manage everything from one place, and stop thinking about the mechanics of posting. I focused on getting the workflow right — campaigns, reuse, structure — rather than growth, SEO, or monetization.
Technically, the project is “done”:
frontend and backend are in place
auth, database, and deployment work
the core workflow feels solid
But it’s still early. No revenue. No real users beyond my own testing.
Now I’m at a point I’ve hit before but never really written about:
What do you do when you’ve finished building, but haven’t proven demand yet?
Do you:
double down, market it, and see what happens
keep iterating until signals appear
or decide that the build itself was the win and move on
As developers, it’s easy to enjoy the building phase and avoid the uncomfortable questions that come after. I’m trying to be more intentional this time and actually pause to evaluate instead of blindly pushing forward.
For those who’ve been here:
What signals mattered most to you?
How long did you give a project before deciding its direction?
Did you ever choose to stop — and feel good about it later?
Would love to hear how others think about this stage.
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