Adventure Club - 30x500 Notes on Failure

Context: Joel Hooks with a group of egghead instructors going through 30x500.

30x500 is a course that teaches you a systemized approach to successfully launch a product. I’m going to be sharing things I’ve learned from it along the way.

This post is going to be about the failure we face when we feel inspired to build a product:

A big problem with failure is that it LOOKS like success up until the moment you realize you’re fucked - Most people create products, then hope it sells. What makes it soul crushing is that you’re investing so much time and energy into getting it shipped. Tons of discussions, research, development, pitching… The list can go on forever.

What we don’t get told enough is that the moment we lift a finger towards building a product, we have already fucked up.

I’m going to copy and paste this one more time because if you’re anything like me, you’re going to hate being told that your idea sucks and you’re fucking up after you already got started so here we go:

The moment we lift a finger towards building a product, we have already fucked up.

If building products is so bad then why am I so excited to launch a new one every other month?

It’s because you’re taking Action and action feels amazing.

Imagine putting breathing on your to-do list. Right after taking a breath, you’re now able to check off “breathing” on the to-do list.

Not only did you inhale sweet, succulent oxygen, but you also get the benefit of checking something off your to-do list. Breathing felt productive. When you take action towards launching your product, everything you do feels productive. Everything you do feels like one step closer towards making it to Forbes 30 under 30, being best friends with Elon Musk and tweeting hustle porn on your timeline like a tech founder/VC.

Things like buying domains for your cool, quirky app name, pitching the idea to your family members, researching business models and trying to recruit people to help you for free like an asshole, all of it feels so productive. You feel like you’re moving, but you’re actually stuck.

What you need to do is do the research to figure out whether or not you can make money.

How can I guarantee I can make a product that sells without building the product first?

According to 30x500, we have to have the answers to three questions. You need to pick an audience (might do a separate post on audience), first, and then ask:

1. What do they want?
2. What do they need?
3. What do they buy?

It’s crucial to understand that all three of these need answers. If you know what an audience wants and needs, but they don’t buy anything (COUGH FIGHTING GAMERS COUGH), then it’s going to be incredibly difficult to make a successful product.

So the very first step towards making a product would be choosing an audience to make this product for. I have more notes from 30x500 on how to choose that audience, but that might be a post for another day.

I wanted to write about this because this is basically me right now yelling at past me. I literally decided to learn how to code off the momentum of me being inspired for my galaxy brain app ideas. I don’t regret learning how to code at all, but learning how to code was extremely hard and I can’t help but reflect on how far I was willing to go chasing things that weren’t going to end up making me money. I hope this post gives you a little perspective on how to save your time and energy.