The rules of software success

Do not index

Nikita Bier is slowly become my fav sources of new product hacks. He just dropped some wisdom about building great consumer products.

Having built multiple products myself, his advice hits different when you've lived it.

So here is the summary, alongside my experiences to help you succeed in your product journey:

👇🏻

(here is nikita in case you don’t know him by name:)

The V1 still sucks

"Your V1 should be embarrassing because you need this level of relevancy for a subset of people where when they see that product, they're like, this was made for me."

This is brutally accurate.

When we launched Tweet Hunter, it was literally just a database of tweets with AI vector search. Embarrassing compared to what we had a few months later.

But Twitter growth nerds saw it and immediately understood the value.

Same with Outrank.so - Started as simple blog automation for a tiny group of SEO-obsessed founders. Looked primitive, but the target audience got it instantly.

The counterintuitive truth: broad appeal in V1 usually means zero appeal to anyone.

What’s the way ahead?

"in a small silo in a stealth way until you had resonance with a particular audience."

I've done this with every successful project:

SuperX.so : Built in stealth for 6 months with Rob, testing with a small group of X power users before any public announcement.

Feather.so : Acquired and improved quietly, focusing on a core group of Notion users who needed better blogging tools.

Revid.ai : Started by serving a specific type of content creator, not trying to be everything to everyone.

The mistake most founders make:

Going public too early, before they have conviction it's working.

Design as competitive advantage

"Consumer products live and die in the pixels."

This is where many SaaS founders fail. They think good design is optional. ⚠️ do not confuse "design" with "aesthetic"

Every successful product I've built prioritized design from day one:

Clean interfaces that feel premium

User flows that make sense intuitively

Visual hierarchy that guides behavior

I’ve learnt the hard way that this is not optional.

Good product brings in people. Great design and interface keeps them there.

Nikita emphasizes starting with a "pretty small community that might even be embarrassing to tell your friends."

This goes against every instinct, especially when dreaming big.

But it works:

Tweet Hunter: Twitter growth obsessives (embarrassingly niche)

Outrank.so : SEO automation nerds (tiny community)

Revid.ai : AI Short-form video creators (specific subset)

Each started with a group so focused that competitors ignored them entirely.

Ask yourself:

Would your target users be embarrassed to admit they need this?

Are you building in stealth until you have real user validation?

Do you have clear success criteria for your experiments?

Are you investing in design as a competitive advantage?

Is your initial focus narrow enough to dominate completely?

If you answered no to any of these, you might be building on the wrong foundation.

The market rewards products that solve specific problems extremely well, not products that solve general problems adequately.

What are you building?

If you have any questions - i’d be happy to look at them and answer them in my upcoming content. Just reply to this email 👇🏻

Tweet of the week

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until then,

Keep building,

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The rules of software success

The V1 still sucks

What’s the way ahead?

Design as competitive advantage

Tweet of the week

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