I just lost $20,000.

Do not index

Social media is great for a lot of things.

Distribution

Authority

Network.

The only downside?

It paints a wrong picture sometimes.

For example - if a new developer visits my profile - it might seem like all I do is win.

Every project hits 10k MRR. Every employee I hire is a star employee. Everything I touch turns to gold.

(okay that last bit is too much but you get the point lol)

But that's not true.

I'm human, I have failed projects too. Some bigger than what you might expect.

Today, let me tell you a story of how I lost $20k on a project very recently:

Last winter, Tom and I got excited about an idea:

We loved Screen Studio (that slick iOS screen recorder)

Noticed they didn't have quick link sharing (Loom style)

Thought "Hey, let's build that!". But better.

We had it all -

Great opportunity, clear drawback in the competitor.

Here's where it gets interesting...

We were both busy with Tweet Hunter and Taplio post-acquisition.

So we did what any right minded person would do - Hired a developer to build it for us. Makes sense, right? We were so wrong.

Fast forward to today: Project's dead. $20k loss. Each.

Ouch.

So I thought about the mistakes we did along the way.

I suck on this one, as I did the opposite of many things I usually advice against.

And learning from them might teach you some lessons that would take you some time and money to learn 👇👇

1. Ship More

We built in darkness for months.

But shipping constantly gives you traction, which alone is not very valuable. But no traction means no feedback. Which is worse.

You might be building something which has no demand in the first place.

Don't wait for perfection - ship fast and learn faster.

PS - Shipping faster IS making the product better.

If every modification you do improves your product by 1% - you can imagine the compounding effect it will have on the product.

Shipping more implies a system which make product better.

2. Hire the right person

As I look back — maybe hiring a developer wasn’t the right move.

Or rather, let me explain with a framework:

Junior employee = More hands-on responsibility Senior employee = Less hand holding, more strategy

We missed this aspect while hiring.

Remember: It’s never the wrong person. It’s always the wrong role.

3. I Underestimated The Work

"Just a cute screen recorder" - that's what we thought.

But in reality? 10x more complex than we imagined.

Everything seems way easier when you are a spectator.

Get in the arena first. Plan later.

4. Wrong Target Audience

My audience is founders and creators. This was for sales teams.

I couldn't leverage my distribution at all.

And with the blurred positioning, I couldn’t get the product a starting boost and feedback which I usually do.

5. Sunken Cost Fallacy

We knew something was off 3-4 months ago.

But we'd already spent so much, so we kept going.

Kill your projects fast if they aren't working.

The Ironic Part?

These mistakes are the EXACT OPPOSITE of what I usually preach:

Ship fast

Stay focused

Know your audience

Cut losses early

Guess even "experienced" founders can forget the basics.

Or maybe we just lost focused.

Success can make you hazzy. You think you can just:

Hire someone

Wait a month

Ship something amazing

Use your audience

Profit!

Spoiler: It doesn't work like that.

I basically forgot everything I learned building Tweet Hunter and Taplio. Iterating fast, building in public, early feedback - all out the window.

Remember: The longer you wait to kill a failing project, the harder it gets.

Every month that passes, you fall deeper into the "but I've invested so much already" trap.

Be brave. Kill projects fast.

Hope this edition helped!

Well, before we move forward - I’m working on something new - this time keeping all my rules in mind.
It’s a secret project involving AI SEO-keyword research + automatic blog generation.
I’m looking to onboard 4 new people for beta testing before the public launch.
If you want to try - reply to this email (will cost you $99/mo but will solve most of your SEO problems)

Let’s take this opportunity to share our losses.

Take a screenshot of your favorite part from this edition - and share a story of when you failed in something you wanted to do.

Tag me @tibo_maker and I’ll share your story with others!

Tweet of the week

As the founder - you set the culture, goals, and everything in between.

YOU are the benchmark.

Share this with a friend who might find this useful!

Keep building 💻 Tibo