Hey there. Today I'm sharing one of my favorite failure stories—the kind that taught me to ask "why?" before ever opening Figma.
The 'Genius' Idea
A year ago, I became obsessed with building "Tinder for business networking"—swipe to find corporate partners. I imagined endless use cases: freelancers, Fortune 500s, you name it. I conducted 5 whole user interviews (yes, just five, because "it's so obvious"). Then I started prototyping on Bubble.
The most dangerous phrase in startups: "It's totally obvious!"When Reality Hit
Two months later, I showed the MVP to my "hot leads"—those same five interviewees. Their response? "Cool, but we wouldn't pay." Cold outreach on LinkedIn got zero conversions. Then a CEO friend dropped the bomb: "How's this better than a Telegram group chat?" That's when it clicked.
Where I went wrong:
- Assumed the problem existed (never validated)
- Built around "cool UX" instead of real pain points
- Confused "I like this" with "people will pay"
My Hard-Earned Takeaways
Now I demand answers to three questions before any MVP:
- What specific actions do people currently take to solve this problem? (If "nothing"—stop)
- Will anyone commit to paying BEFORE I build this? (Even verbally)
- What happens if my product breaks tomorrow? (If "nothing"—game over)
Funny enough, this flop led directly to my current project—but that's another story. Ever built an MVP that crashed and burned? How'd you recover?