u/TravelingTice

Hi dear Indiehacker community!

The past 2 weeks or so have been quite a transition for my mindset towards what to build. I used to build something I thought was cool and could "seemingly" solve a lot of problems, but when it came to distribution, I always hit a wall. People would react with nice words, they thought the product was awesome, my builder skills were great, but then... nothing. I realized that all these words of encouragement, all these positive reactions.. they were all lies.

I read "The Mom Test" last week and that was what brought it all together for me. Especially from what I experienced in the past 2 years (see my other post on an app I went to China for 3 times to promote). We talked to our target audience, pitched our app probably 50-100 times over a 4 week period. We refined this pitch and got a positive reaction out of the people we were trying to sell to 80% of the time. Yet after all this efforts, nothing fruitful has come of it. No follow-ups, no callbacks, it was essentially dead again the day I arrived back in my country after the trip.

We built something no one wanted to buy. And that had some good reasons. The problem just wasn't big enough. We had some competitors, but they solved a whole array of problems, all at once, for these Chinese factory owners. Just having 1 problem solved, yet having to do a lot of admin work upfront just wasn't worth it. These are great learnings to have now. But I think I could've learnt these things way earlier, and probably just on 1 trip to China, instead of 3.

If I had just talked to our target audience, without pitching our product, just asking curiously which problems they were currently facing. What their focus was. What was causing their greatest leverage. I probably would've built a totally different product if at all. I think after just 3 conversations, I would've picked up the onboarding admin cost would've been too much. Or even that the problem we were trying to solve (quotation sheets) was very low in their priority list.

But I'm glad I have learnt these lessons now. It made me look very differently at how the world works. Why some problems have been solved, but others haven't. It's all about whether people feel there is enough value in solving the problem, that they're willing to pay money for it. No money is no viable business. I will take these learnings with me on my next startup venture. Talking to our target audience first. Talking until my picture is complete. What problems do they have? What are they spending a lot of time and money on? Is it the same as I thought? Would a product be able to made to solve their needs? Only after answering these questions fully will I build again.

Recently I've been a bit more active on Reddit, as I'm building another startup. I made a post recently where I asked for feedback of an early version of that app and a lot of people mentioned that it looked like I was falling into the "builder trap". As I'm trying to learn from this, I want to share a personal experience of a startup I was focused on for most of 2024 and 2025, where I was most likely in a similar trap 😅

A friend of mine, who has spent 10+ years in the China import-export business had an idea for an app that would solve a big pain point that a lot of Chinese factory owners seemed to have. As a factory owner in China, a big part of getting customers is being present at "trade shows" where foreign buyers would come and make in-person connections with your factory's sales team present there. This process is usually not very smooth. Exchange of business cards. Samples can be picked out, but a customer only really makes a decision based on a quotation sheet from the factory.

This quotation sheet could come in a week later, or even longer, after which you've forgotten about your impression with the factory (you might talk to 20+ similar ones at the show) which highly impacts your decision making. Also, this quotation sheet would usually be a "Chinglish" excel sheet that was confusing and not very professional. Not a very good impression.

Our app would tackle these 2 pain points: Create this quotation sheet right when you have that first customer interaction, and make it look professional with using our quotation templates. A "product database quote engine": Get your products in before the show, churn out a customized professional-looking quote while you talk with your customer.

Over the course of 2024 I basically solo-built this. My cofounder didn't know how to code, so he was doing the marketing side of things. Also we lived on the opposite side of the world (me in Taiwan, he in the US). I spent a lot a lot of time adding features like a business card scanner, even a whole system where the tool worked offline as the wifi at the trade show can be spotty.

Then in October of 2024 me and my cofounder met up in China and we decided to try to find beta-users. This is where the actual growth happened I think. We learnt a lot on this trip. Talked a lot of our target audience. We refined our sales pitch, and ended up with a large list of improvements to make. But we were convinced we had something, as most of the response from people we talked to was very good, but we didn't find anyone willing to put in their items and beta test it.

Then in 2025, my cofounder kinda made other life plans and didn't prioritize the project, but I felt that as I have already put so much into this project myself, I did want to continue. So I basically took the learnings from that trip, made slight improvements to the app, overcame my fears and went back to the trade show in October of 2025 myself.

And I had some results. I landed a customer! But I think mostly because the boss liked me as a person. But as he was planning to be at the show, I made it my goal to set up the app for him, basically do all the manual preparations he had to do (input item info etc). I even helped printing small QR code stickers and paste them on every displayed item of his collection. He was totally set up. I felt like I had reached my goal. He would be convinced of the value, and the rest would be easy now I thought.

But... he didn't use it. His colleagues didn't use it. No one did... and that was a gut punch. I thought it was so weird, because when we demoed this product and did our sales pitch, everyone was convinced. We got so much positive feedback. Yet no one went through, set up the product and started using it. And I thought, it would be really difficult to make it viable, if it took this much effort to "convert" a customer.. but not even really converting.

So.. I'm still kinda processing the lesson here I guess, but nonetheless I have no regrets. I learnt a lot about the import-export world, had an amazing adventure in China, and above all, gained a great level of self-esteem because I decided to continue with it myself. Even though I essentially failed.

Let me know what you think. Was this the builder trap? Or was this just a quirk of Chinese culture and not trusting a Western face to sell them software 😂 Any tips, feedback or any encouragement would be greatly appreciated.