Small software, built and sold alone
I have failed at this more times than most people have tried it.
I spent 14 years building software other people had decided on, then 9 years launching my own from a spare room. Roughly 30 small products. 25 of them are dead, and I wrote down what happened to every one.
These books are the notes, with the embarrassing parts left in.
30 launches. The 5 lit are still paying.
The Ship Alone books
Four books, one person, no team
Out now
Ship Alone
The method: choose, build, charge for and launch a small product on your own, and know when to stop.
Coming soon
Nobody Bought It
The evidence: 25 dead products, one chapter each, and the rule each death left behind.
Coming soon
Who Pays for the AI?
The bill: pricing and running a product with a model inside it, so every customer costs less than they pay.
Coming soon
The Second Product
What comes next: growing past the first product without running out of evenings.
Where to start
- You can build anything and you have never sold a product of your own.
- Ship Alone
- Something you built went quiet, and you want to know why before the next one does.
- Nobody Bought It
- There is a language model inside your product and a bill at the end of every month.
- Who Pays for the AI?
- One product pays, and you are wondering what comes next.
- The Second Product
From Nobody Bought It
25 products, and the rule each one left
Chapter 3: Six Places in One Morning
A weekly broken-link checker that emailed website owners a report. Lived 6 months.
If you cannot say who will hear about it on day 2, you have a post, not a launch.
Chapter 10: 14 Months Free
A shared shopping list for households. Lived 17 months.
Free users prove that people like free things. Charge from the first customer.
Chapter 16: The Keenest Customer
First-draft replies to reviews and enquiries for people who let holiday cottages. Lived 11 months.
Price for the heaviest sensible customer, because that is who arrives when it works.
A dead product you wrote down is research. A dead product you buried is only a loss.