Ran an exercise this week that stung a little. 😅 I priced a typical nights-and-weekends MVP build at honest market rates: 🕐 ~500 hours over 3 months × $70/hour = $35,000 of a founder's own time 🏷️ A development agency's average for the same build: $28,000 So the "free" DIY build costs more than hiring it out — the invoice just never arrives, so it never feels real. The flip side: one founder presold 50 licenses in 3 days and collected $20,000 BEFORE building. Full story plus a 15-minute audit you can run on your own project is in today's newsletter: https://rapidflowautomation.beehiiv.com Curious about this group: have you ever priced your own build hours in real dollars — and if you did it right now, what number would you get? 👇

Quick one for the builders here 👋 I spent this week digging into founders who grew through app marketplaces instead of cold channels. The case that stuck with me: a solo dev listed a tiny Shopify app, ranked #1 for the words store owners actually search, and went $0 → $1,051 MRR in 4 months. Later sold it for $250K. Zero ad spend. 💰 📊 Shopify's own data says 60% of app installs come from marketplace search. The full breakdown — including the 3-question test for picking your first marketplace and the honest risks of building on rented land — is in today's newsletter: 👉 https://rapidflowautomation.beehiiv.com Question for the group: which app marketplace do YOUR buyers already live in — and have you listed there? 💬

Just finished writing tomorrow's deep-dive and this one hit close to home. 👇 One solo founder: 37 product launches in 5 years, 18 of 26 tracked made exactly $0. Another: ONE survey product, 2 years of near-silence, now $125K/month. Still solo. The data behind it is uncomfortable — first real revenue takes 12–18 months on one product, and month 18 is the most common quitting point. We give up at the doorstep. 🧨 The article has a 3-step written Stay-or-Switch Test I genuinely think every builder here should run: kill criteria, a 2-question monthly check-in, and an ideas.txt rule. ✍️ Full breakdown: https://rapidflowautomation.beehiiv.com Honest question for the community: how many products have you started in the last 12 months — and how many did you give a written deadline? 👇