Herewegoal was a project management tool designed for individuals and freelancers who wanted something simple, intuitive, and free from unnecessary complexity.
I spent a year building it mostly by myself. During that time, I went through two pivots, talked to users, shipped features, and tried different growth strategies. Eventually, the data and reality became impossible to ignore, and I decided to shut it down.
After taking a month to reflect, I realized the experience taught me far more than any startup book ever could. Looking back through the lens of The Lean Startup and Zero to One, here are the five biggest lessons I learned.
1. Great Design Is Not a Moat. Strong Pain Is.
In the beginning, I believed that if I built a product with exceptional UI and UX, users would naturally come.
I was wrong.
A product can be beautiful, fast, and thoughtfully designed, but if it doesn't solve a painful problem, it remains a side project.
One of my biggest mistakes was assuming that my own frustrations represented a large market opportunity. In reality, the project management space is already crowded, and the problem I was solving simply wasn't painful enough for most people to pay for.
The market doesn't reward passion.
It rewards value.
And value usually comes from solving problems people desperately want solved.
2. Ask Before You Build
One of the core ideas in The Lean Startup is the Build-Measure-Learn loop.
Looking back, I spent too much time building and not enough time asking questions.
Questions like:
- Do people actually need this?
- Is this problem important enough?
- Can this become a real business instead of just a useful tool?
Early-stage startups should spend more time validating assumptions than writing code.
Building the wrong thing faster doesn't make you more successful.
It only helps you fail faster.
3. Founders Should Be Able to Take the First Step Themselves
A perspective that deeply influenced me came from Alan Chan, the co-founder and CEO of Heptabase.
In the zero-to-one stage, founders should be capable of building the first version themselves, whether that's creating prototypes, writing code, designing workflows, talking to customers, or providing support.
Throughout Herewegoal, I handled everything from coding to marketing myself.
This taught me three important advantages:
Speed. You can turn ideas into reality immediately without waiting on others.
Understanding. Writing the code and talking to customers yourself gives you insights that are difficult to obtain through reports or meetings.
Leadership. The founder's behavior becomes the foundation of the company's future culture.
The closer you are to the work, the better your decisions become.
4. In the Age of AI, Retention Matters More Than Ever
At one point, I was proud that Herewegoal had reached more than 500 users.
But when I looked deeper into the funnel, I realized something uncomfortable:
People were signing up, but they weren't staying.
Retention was weak. Conversion was weak.
That's when I learned an important lesson:
Before worrying about Day 7 retention, focus on Day 1 retention.
If users aren't coming back shortly after trying your product, growth becomes extremely difficult.
For weeks, I tried to solve the problem by working harder and shipping more features.
What I should have done was spend more time talking to the users who left.
The people who churn are often your most valuable source of truth.
Growth doesn't come from effort alone.
It comes from delivering enough value that users want to return on their own.
5. Find a Unique Insight
Peter Thiel often talks about creating value through unique insights that others don't see.
Herewegoal entered one of the most competitive software categories imaginable: project management.
My thesis was that a simpler and more intuitive experience could carve out a niche.
The reality was harsher.
In highly competitive markets, incremental improvements are rarely enough.
If your product disappears tomorrow and nobody notices, it probably hasn't created enough differentiated value.
The best startups aren't just slightly better.
They're meaningfully different.
Conclusion
Looking back, I believe execution is incredibly important.
In a world where AI dramatically accelerates software development, perfectionism has become one of the biggest risks for founders.
If you wait until a product feels perfect before launching, you've probably waited too long.
Real execution means:
- Shipping before you're comfortable.
- Learning from real users instead of assumptions.
- Iterating faster than your competitors.
- Finding ways to get your product in front of the right people.
The goal isn't to build a perfect product.
The goal is to discover something people truly want.
Herewegoal failed.
But the lessons it taught me were worth far more than the product itself.