What is currently the biggest “gap” in your growth journey

I thought I would share this in here Aslam, since it might help someone else who is building a product such as a software: Building my second AI startup has been humbling in a very specific way. For context: I’ve been part of building a 7-figure startup before. Not a “one-tweet, one-launch” success, but years of real involvement. Product decisions. Customer conversations. Server Outages in the middle of a conference we were presenting our product at. Pressure. Messy execution. The whole thing. And yet, this second startup forced me to relearn fundamentals I thought I had already mastered. What surprised me most wasn’t some new AI insight or clever growth hack. It was how valuable the boring stuff still is. The same principles Y Combinator has been hammering into founders for years about building products people actually want. Simple. Uncomfortable. And incredibly easy to dismiss once you think you’re “past that stage”. That assumption is exactly what gets you into trouble. Here’s what building this startup drilled back into me. 1. Talk to your first customers. Early. Relentlessly. This sounds trivial until you notice how easily you avoid it. In my head, I had a clean narrative: problem, solution, ICP. On paper, it made sense. In reality, my first real users immediately poked holes in assumptions I didn’t even realize I was making. The biggest mistake isn’t building the wrong feature. It’s building in isolation and calling it strategy. Every meaningful improvement we made came from a real conversation, not from thinking harder or refining slides. Talking to users didn’t slow us down. It removed weeks of wasted work. 2. Iterate fast based on what they actually do, not what they say. Feedback is noisy. Behavior isn’t. People are polite. They’ll say “sounds cool” and never come back. They’ll praise features they never touch. If you listen only to words, you’ll drift. The only feedback that mattered was: Did they use it again? Did they struggle at the same point? Did they ask the same question twice?

Hey Fam! Help me welcome our new members . 🥳 We are so glad you are @Kim Bond @Benno Zacherl @Francesca Giovanni @John Richard Lloyd-Hughes @Rhoshadra Ransom @Gerard Touchette To kick things off, drop an introduction in the comments below or CREATE YOUR OWN POST: - Who you are + where you’re from (optional) - Your current goals with your business and/or community. Also, make sure to: ✅ Start with the “WELCOME TO OUR COMMUNITY post.— it walks you through how to get the most out of this community. ✅ Check out our ‘ WEEKLY RYTHEM ‘ How this community works. And don’t forget to share a link to your channel and/or community so we can check it out and support you! 🚀 We’re excited to get to know you and celebrate your wins along the way. Welcome to the fam! 💡 Aslam