Great at building products. Terrible at selling them. Can I change it ?
hey, im Ricardo. originally from brazil, living in the UK now. 20 years building saas, mostly healthcare and logistics tools back in brazil. behind the scenes work, solving technical problems for other peoples businesses.
ive shipped a few products of my own over the years. they made money. never quite enough though. same pattern every time, build the thing, get some early users, watch growth flatten, eventually move on to the next idea. this time i actually want to crack the part that broke every previous attempt.
wudtr is what me and my brother are building now. its an all-in-one for creators selling digital products and running paid communties, so they dont have to pay for 5 different tools and manually keep them in sync. the building part is going fine. growth is the wall were staring at.
here to share what were working on but mostly here to learn from people who've been through this. if you've taken a product from "makes some money" to "actually growing", id love to hear what changed for you.
Replies
Hey Ricardo, love the candid story... building great tools and then hitting that growth wall is super relatable. One thing that helped me was tightening the feedback loop with early users and turning those insights into quick, shareable content that sparks word‑of‑mouth.
If you're up for it, I'm launching on PH soon... would appreciate a follow (See "PRODUCT HUNT LAUNCH" Link in my profile). I'm bringing The Sponge to life – an AI‑powered flashcard app that turns any webpage into study material, making knowledge stick with spaced repetition.
@rianbrob really appreciate you taking the time to reply Rian, means a lot at this stage. and actually a personal angle for me on this one. my sons starting GCSEs next year and weve already seen him buried under handwritten flashcards just from the prep. takes hours to make them, half get lost, the rest barely get reviewed twice. if your tool can take a revision guide or a wikipedia page and turn it into a deck he can actually study from on his phone, thats going to be a real problem in our house soon.\
quick question, how does the spaced repetition side work? is it something a teenager can set up themselves or does it need a parent staying on top of it?
@ricardobruggemann That is exactly why I’m building this!
To answer your question: the goal is 100% complete autonomy for the student. A teenager can absolutely set this up themselves in seconds without any parent oversight. They just drop in a link or a guide, and the AI handles the heavy lifting of breaking it down into smart cards.
That being said, you hit on something I'm really excited about: family and group plans are definitely on the roadmap. I want to build a space where parents or teachers can share decks, assign specific topics, and subtly track review progress to make sure things aren't just piling up.
A few other quick things that should help with the exact problems he's facing:
Smart Reminders: For the spaced repetition side, if something is due for review and he hasn't logged in in a while, he'll get an email notification so things don't get forgotten.
Mobile Apps: We are launching on the web first, but dedicated mobile apps are coming soon. In the meantime, the notifications will make sure he stays on track, and mobile push alerts will follow with the app release.
I think this is a very common founder pattern: building feels controllable, selling feels messy. What usually helps is turning growth into a repeatable workflow too — small conversations, clear positioning, weekly experiments, and learning from the people who almost bought but didn’t.