Nika

What was your 1st product?

Sometimes I have a problem to have a look at my past milestones or things I have achieved so far.

When I think about it, even creating my first product was a success for me. I’ve always been a bit shy and afraid to show what I was working on, or I just didn’t know how to present it properly, so it took me a really long time.

My first product was an online workout program with a payment gateway, and the monthly price was ridiculously low. But I managed to monetise it and had my first customers. I was probably around 20 at the time. 😀

  • What was your first product?

  • What would you do differently to maintain it and make it successful?

  • What lesson did you learn from it?

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9MR

Now I built an web-app for image editing with AI model in first time of my life,
And Now I learn about "Make a product is not finish, just start." 😂

Nika

@9mr Do you have a website claimed? :D

9MR

@busmark_w_nika It's my product page! :) name is banano-shot. https://www.producthunt.com/products/banano-shot

Nika

@9mr aaa, can see it now! :)

PRIYANKA MANDAL

My first product was Lancepilot.com, a SaaS platform that helps businesses run marketing campaigns through WhatsApp.

It taught me that early feedback is gold. I initially spent too long perfecting features instead of validating real user needs.

If I could do it again, I’d focus more on distribution from day one.

Nika

@priyankamandal How is Lancepilot doing now?

Oluwafeyikemi  E.Jonah

@priyankamandal claps, you can never go wrong with validating users need, if you are doing it again, would love to do with you...

Ilai Szpiezak

My first product was a Google Form stitched with a PayPal link for online dance classes 🕺.
Proper MVP (during the pandemic!)

Long way from there to Pretty Prompt now!

Krishna Gupta

@ilaiszp amazing growth! starting with simple google forms to validate the idea sounds pretty smart. what was your key learning there that you still follow?

Ilai Szpiezak
@krishna_gupta51 it was a long time ago, and I’ve moved on several products from there! Learning: growth doesn’t just happen. You make it happens yourself.
Nika

@ilaiszp Were those dance classes online during the COVID?

Ilai Szpiezak

@busmark_w_nika Yes! :)

Literally grew to about 200 users paying between $15 - 40/m for online dance classes. Learnt so much about solving real deep pain points regardless of how complex (or simple in my case) your product is!

Was a fun experience. But now building Pretty Prompt. We did a launch on Product hunt a while ago - 2nd product of the day, and will do a relaunch soon!

Nika

@ilaiszp You are probably also a skilled growth marketer! Have to learn a lot from you ;)

Ilai Szpiezak

@busmark_w_nika I have a lot to learn from you!

Richard Francis

Mine was called "Jet Class". It was an online marketplace/platform for buying empty legs (repositioning flights) on private jets. We hooked into private airlines' scheduling systems to surface "potential" empty flights that customers could bid on.

I worked so damn hard on it. At the time, micro services were in vogue and I spent a ton of time building out an elaborate set of services all linked via APIs using Docker, deployed via Amazon ECS.

What would I do differently?
Turns out no one buys these flights ($5k+) by dropping their card details into a website that has zero reviews or online reputation (so obvious now of course 🤣). These things absolutely need a sales team so I would've partnered with someone experienced in private aviation sales, probably via an equity stake.

What lesson did I learn?
There are the obvious lessons (like, don't do all the above), but having built and launched successful companies since, the main lesson was not to spend a ton of time building. No one cares about your tech - just throw something basic up and go from there. Great news for anyone reading is that this is literally the best time ever to do just that using AI.

Nika

@rich186 We tend to over-engineer products, but the thing that is enough to do is to make a basic website to see whether people put their card details :D But it sounds like a good experience :D ty for sharing.

Morteza Sabihi

My first web app on ProductHunt is AirArcade.top. I created it to allow users to play arcade games again without needing a physical console. All you need is a screen—like a TV, laptop, or tablet—and a phone to use as a gamepad. That's it!

Now, I'm trying to share it with others, and that's the most challenging part for me.

As a developer, building apps is not difficult, but marketing them is a lot harder at this stage.

Nika

@morteza_sabihi Cool! It feels so nostalgic. I remember how I watched the movie Pixels with Adam Sandler! :D It was something similar to Pac-Man. 👾

Sanskar Yadav

I built a to-do list Chrome extension that verifies if you have really completed a task or not (just guesses based on the time you've spent on that tab and if the listed task really takes that much longer or not).

If it fails to verify the status of the task, there was a checkbox saying - "I swear on oreos that I've done it bro 😭"

Oh god, I should have launched it here!

Nika

@sanskarix yes! Please launch. It sounds like a fun, it could be featured :D

Sanskar Yadav

@busmark_w_nika I'll try to find the code and I'll launch it if I find it

Nika

@sanskarix Hope we will witness it! :D

Philippe Bernard
Hey Nika, that's a great first product! Not really my first but the one I always pick when I talk about my indie maker journey: 15+ years ago I created the smallest website ever: www.rotatepdf.net . It does exactly what the name suggests. SEO, e few others simulars services and 3 years later, I had enough ads revenue to quit my job.
Nika

@ph_bernard Cool! Did you work in administration before? Because this kind of service would come to my mind in such an environment. :D

Muhamed Maher

My first app on product hunt is pixel fixer for fixing stuck screen pixels
there are many apps like that but i have my unique features

Nika

@muhamed_maher I haven't experienced an issue with pixels so far, but this can be pretty useful if I do once. :)

Muhamed Maher

@busmark_w_nika i hope you like it

Cosmin Iurea

PassTIA(passtia.com) is my first and only product 🫡

From this experience I've learned that if your product solves someone's problem,that person is will to pay .

What started as a project and the developed as a problem for my own problem became now a solution for more people.

Nika

@cosmin_iurea Solving own problems is usually the best way to start a business, you are a great example for that.

Cosmin Iurea

@busmark_w_nika Thank you for your kind words 🫂 Much appreciated!

Nika

@cosmin_iurea You are welcome! :)

twinkal Shah

My first product was Datapulsify — an SEO reporting tool I built with my sister. It didn’t just show reports; it gave actionable insights to grow organic traffic.

We launched it here on Product Hunt and made around $20K in just 2 months — even got a few acquisition offers. But I never sold it. It was my first child, and I still treat it that way. ❤️

Looking back, the biggest lesson was this: Your first product doesn’t have to be perfect — it just has to be yours.

Nika

@twinkal_shah1 can you please share that launch? What launching strategies did you use?

twinkal Shah

@busmark_w_nika Here's the launch we did back in 27th June and we've go crazy users on our website and few hundreds of them has converted.

From the PH pov it was not so great launch but because of it we got early eye-balls and that always helps.

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