“I’m adding new features to my product.”

“And marketing it too, right?”

Silence.

That’s the joke—and the trap. You know the meme. Builder energy on one side. The uncomfortable question on the other. A lot of startups live in that silence: ship forever, tell nobody, hope the App Store fairy shows up with users.

The Trap I’m Not Falling Into

There’s a common symptom among early founders. You keep building. Screens get prettier. The backlog never empties. And somehow nothing ever leaves the room.

No story. No email. No reason for a stranger (or even a friend) to know you exist.

I refuse that version of “focus.” Building without any marketing or getting IN FRONT OF CUSTOMERs isn’t discipline. It’s still building alone—just with more commits.

This journal is marketing. Not a pitch deck. Not a growth funnel. A deliberate decision to put the work where people can see it, so the right people can find it before the product is “ready.” A validate if the product that you ideated in head really deserves to built or do I try something else?

Build for Yourself — For Real

I also refuse the other trap: building to impress an audience that doesn’t exist yet.

Oliver Servín put it cleanly—build for yourself alone, if you are the actual user of the product. Not “build for yourself so that others might eventually like it.” That’s still performing. Every feature filtered through whether it would look good on someone else’s timeline.

I agree.

mee.contact has to solve a pain I actually feel: contact exchange that steals the conversation.

So: sovereignty first. Ship for me AND potential customers. Iterate my way. Be small. Be wrong in public. That’s the fuel.

But Audience ≠ Customers

Holding that truth doesn’t mean a subscriber count is the win.

Rob Walling’s framing (via a piece that stuck with me) is blunt (thanks Gracie Van):

• A founder with 10 customers and no audience has a business.

• A founder with 10,000 followers and no customers just has an audience.

Paying customers matter more than a Substack list of any size. I’m saying that out loud so I don’t confuse open rates with product-market fit.

Right now I don’t have customers let alone a product to get in front of customers with. The app isn’t on the App Store. An email list is not revenue. It’s a practice channel—a way to talk to people early without pretending the business is already solved.

Why Substack Email Anyway

I keep publishing on Substack for the distribution layer, getting it in front of eyeballs—speed, habit, free email the moment I hit publish. That piece still stands.

The short version for this argument: every post is an email campaign.

Who These Emails Are For

Two layers. I’m not pretending they’re the same person.

• Amplifiers now (family and friends): They may never be the primary users. That’s fine. They’re people who can talk about the work. A dinner conversation. A “my cousin is building something for career fairs.” Word of mouth that inclines someone else to try a new thing when it ships. I’m not measuring them as conversion. I’m treating them as early witnesses.

• Future users I’m actually hunting: Recruiters. Students. Anyone who does contact exchange on a daily, weekly, or conference rhythm—the people who live the hand-off pain for real. Career fair lines. Mixers. Rooms where the conversation is the point and typing numbers is the tax.

Those are the eyeballs I want this email trail to reach. Family and friends help spread the story. The journal is how I hope the story lands in front of people who will use the product.

What I’m Not Claiming

This is not product-market fit. This is not a waitlist gimmick with fake scarcity. This is not growth-hack theater where I optimize for vanity metrics while the app stays private.

It’s the opposite of “build in the dark.” And it’s the opposite of “build only for applause.”

I’m establishing a path to the right people while the product is still in progress—without confusing a Substack open with a customer who pays.

Building without marketing is still building alone. Marketing without a real product for yourself is still performing. I’m trying to hold both.

Recap

I’m Luciano Huapaya. I’m building mee.contact in public—an app to automate the contact exchange so you can stay present when you meet people. Personas for what you share, Connections for who you meet, Events for where you met them. Not on the App Store yet. This is the journal of getting there.