The mountain
Here's what nobody tells you during those late-night coding, designing, and debugging sessions.
Finishing your product isn't the finish line, it's just the beginning of the climb.
I've built over 100 projects—for clients, for myself, for that burning idea that kept me up at night.
I see it happen all the time in the indie maker community. Hell, I was that person.
You pour months into building an app, perfecting every feature, obsessing over every detail. You hit launch day with a mix of excitement and terror. And then... crickets. Maybe your close friends download it. Maybe you get a few kind words from followers on your social media.
But that explosion you imagined? It doesn't come.
This is the moment where most makers think they failed.
Where you start questioning everything.
Was the idea bad?
Was the execution off?
Should I move on to the next thing?
But here's what I've learned: This moment, this deflating, humbling moment is where your actual product journey begins.
Building something in 2025 is you just buying your gear for the climb ahead.
Think about climbing a mountain. Before you can even attempt the ascent, you need boots, a jacket, a tent, food, rope. You need to gather everything, prep everything, get yourself ready. That preparation is essential. You literally cannot climb without it.
But buying your gear isn't climbing the mountain. It's just the prerequisite. The entry ticket.
Building your product is buying your gear. Launching it is dragging yourself to base camp at the bottom of the mountain, setting up your tent, and looking up at the peak. The climb—the actual, grueling, rewarding climb—hasn't even started yet.
The real work begins after launch
Your first 100 users won't come because your product is perfect. They'll come because you showed up. You posted. You shared. You engaged. You improved. You listened. You iterated. Day after day after day.
Growth isn't a one-time event. It's a practice. It's showing up every single day, taking one more step up that mountain. Some days you'll gain altitude. Some days you'll barely move. Some days you'll slide backward. But the people who reach the summit aren't the ones with the best gear—they're the ones who kept walking.
The "overnight success" myth
Every success story you admire? That "overnight success" you read about on Hacker News or Indie Hackers? Look closer. Behind almost every one is 5 years, 10 years, sometimes more of showing up with minimal or zero results. Of launching things that went nowhere. Of feeling like maybe this whole indie maker thing is a delusion.
But they kept going. They took breaks when they needed to breathe. They pivoted when they needed to pivot. They adjusted their path when the original route proved impossible. But they didn't quit.
Keep climbing
So if you just launched something and you're hearing crickets—congratulations. You're at base camp. You've done the hard work of building. Now the real journey begins.
Show up tomorrow. And the day after that. Share your progress. Tell your story. Help people. Improve your product. Talk to users. Fix bugs. Add features. Remove features. Try new channels. Experiment with marketing. Learn as you go.
It won't be easy. You'll face challenges you can't even imagine right now. But eventually, step by step, you'll look back and realize you've climbed higher than you ever thought possible.
