As a solo founder with 20 years of SaaS behind me, I wish more developers knew this before they built their first product.

As a solo founder with 20 years of SaaS behind me, I wish more developers knew this before they built their first product. I WISH I wish someone had told me that users don't want your product. They want the outcome your product promises. Those are not the same thing, and building the wrong one costs you years. I wish... I wish I'd known that the hardest part of launching isn't building — it's deciding what to cut. Every feature you add is a decision you've made on behalf of a customer you haven't talked to yet. I WISH... I wish someone had explained that "we need more users" is almost never the real problem. Usually it's that the people who did show up didn't stay. Fix that first. I wish... I wish I'd understood that being technically better than the competition means almost nothing. Distribution beats quality, every time, for longer than feels fair. I wish... I wish I'd known that the founder who ships something imperfect in week four will beat the founder who ships something perfect in month eight. Every time. Without exception. Twenty years. Multiple products. One thing I'd tell myself at the start: the thing standing between you and a real business is almost never what you think it is.