I’ve been building open source libraries and moonlighting on apps for almost fifteen years. Except for one thing that accidentally went viral, none of what I built ended up being useful to others. If I had to point out one reason for this structural failure to build something useful, it’d be: because I almost didn’t do any outreach. I overwhelmingly focused on building, and letting users find what I do.

Would any of what I’ve built have been successful if I had been consistently doing outreach? I don’t know, but I am betting it would have made a big difference.

Why did I spend so long a time building without talking to users is still an enigma. I’m a social person. Perhaps the building part of me is very introverted. Or perhaps I was worried that talking too much to others and seeing what was “out there” would make me less original, and therefore less valuable.

I’ve been reading up on wiser and more successful builders that have managed to create value for others, and I finally decided to confront the obvious: I need to do outreach to users consistently. Not when I’m “done”, or “ready to show something”. But daily.

I am starting to frame outreach as working out. You don’t start working out when you’ve “made it”, or when you are done with your project, or when your kids grow up. You work out almost every day, in parallel to everything else. Working out consistently improves every other aspect of your life. You cannot do two workouts tomorrow. You do today’s workout today, and tomorrow’s tomorrow.

There might not even be a need for a big outreach plan. Perhaps what ends up making the difference is to show up, consistently. Then you correct and improve along the course. You start small, and eventually you might be doing ten hours a week. But the difference between ten minutes 5x a week and zero is far larger than anything else that will come afterwards.

I’m just beginning to work out in my outreach. Talking to others, figuring out how I can be useful to them through what I build. Just a few reps per day.

If any fellow builders are also coming to similar conclusions (or have already done that), please share your story. I’d love to read about it.