What do you wish you knew 5 years ago?

You don't have to build right away. You can start with selling an idea first.

There's a lot, but i'll name a few lessons I wish I knew earlier:

• Focus on solving a problem in the marketplace. Don't build the next big thing or an unproven idea. Build something that's proven to solve a need and create income as soon as possible so you can take risks on other projects.

• Build a team as soon as possible to take over different aspects of the business, the first being prospecting so that you have new clients coming in each week.

• Hire a personal trainer (still working on this one) so that you're forced to go to the gym and do a proper workout. Nothing is more important than health.

• Learn to break down long-term goals into daily/weekly actions that need to be taken, and then schedule it as a recurring event on your calendar so that it gets done.

• Test more things, faster. If you test 10 things, 9 might not work, but the 1 that does will make all the difference in your life. The quicker you test, the quicker your win comes.

Just some thoughts that came to mind as I read your post. Might add more later as I think about it. Thanks!

build stuff that you'll use by yourself

Growth first, product later, much later

• Focus on building
• Not all social media is bad
• Join tech twitter
• tech what you learn
• Invest in etfs
• focus on building

Start building an audience from day one.

I'd say "first go work for someone else, learn how businesses operate, then build one of your own."

The experience one gains from working in an already established business (in my case a SaaS company) cannot be taken for granted. Sure, it's not the founder's life, but learning business processes that are already working, how to manage a team, selling to users, etc., are experiences that will only assist in your development as a future founder.

Lastly, but certainly the most important, when working for someone else instead of starting something without any experience opens your eyes to opportunities in the market.

I wish I knew not to create a todo list app!

https://www.aflampornhd.com/

https://www.aflampornhd.com/

Two points:

1. Think in terms of iterations instead of product. Just like @prasadmahes said, you want to test your riskiest assumptions as early as possible. To do that, it's important to scope down everything you do, and then learn from it.

2. Stop thinking in terms of success/failure and instead, start thinking about expected/unexpected results.

I wish I knew how critical are skills and mindsets around problem discovery, value creation (knowing how much it is worth and who will be happy to pay for it), shipping.

I didn't have any idea about SEO, indie hacking, digital marketing overall and many more things. Because of pandemic I knew and learned many amazing things.

What about you?

That sometimes the resources you need aren't there because they don't actually exist..

But will soon! :)

The explosion of new marketing tools and communities has been nothing less than amazing in the last 3 years and I have what I need in many areas now :)