You didn’t build a product. You built a secret.

I want to talk about something every founder quietly feels but rarely says out loud:
how hard it is to market what you’ve built.

Because building feels pure.
Marketing feels like begging.

The Builder’s Illusion

You build because you believe.

You spend nights perfecting pixels no one will notice.
You fix bugs at 2AM with headphones on and hope in your chest.
You imagine launch day like a movie ending: people cheering, customers flooding in, validation finally earned.

Then the day comes.
You post.
You refresh.
You wait.

And nothing happens.

That’s when you realize:
you didn’t build a product → you built a secret 🤫

Buzzclip and the Middle Zone

That’s where I am right now.

My product, Buzzclip, has made around €2000 in revenue.
A handful of subscribers. A small but loyal base.

Enough to prove something’s there.
Not enough to prove I’ve made it.

It’s that strange middle zone between traction and oblivion.
Where you feel a pull, people using it, hating it, loving it.
and yet the market around you feels like an ocean filled with funded sharks.

In the last week, I rebuilt the core.
I added things that no one else has:
a multi-prompt engine,
custom unique avatars,
better onboarding, ux/ui
and a whole new layout I call Avatar Branding a way for brands to finally have a face of their own.

And yet, deep down, I know:
technology isn’t the real battlefield anymore.
Distribution is.

You can now build faster than ever.
But can you reach faster than ever?

That’s the game.

The Silent Graph

Launch week feels like falling in love.
Upvotes. DMs. Comments.
You start believing.

Then the graph drops.
The silence returns.
Your motivation with it.

That’s when I understood:
marketing isn’t a one-time stunt.
It’s a discipline.
A ritual.
A long conversation with the world where you keep repeating the same truth until someone finally hears it.

The Vulnerability of Marketing

Marketing hurts because it asks for courage.
It forces you to stand up and say: “I made this. It matters.”

And when the world scrolls past,
it feels like rejection.

But it’s not rejection.
It’s statistics.
It’s timing.
It’s noise.

The internet doesn’t ignore you because you’re bad.
It ignores you because it’s busy.
And you’re alone to spread the word.

Marketing is Empathy, Not Noise

At first, I thought marketing was about tactics: Product Hunt, SEO, threads.
Now I see it differently.

But no, marketing is the bridge between your obsession and their emotion.
When I launched Buzzclip, I thought quality would speak for itself.
It didn’t.

Nothing speaks for itself online.
You have to be its voice.

So here’s what I’m trying now:
I’m testing something simple but powerful on LinkedIn.

Why Linkedin? Because it converts 4 times more than any other network 🤡

A lead magnet.

A whaaaat?

Basically, I post a free resource, something useful, zero fluff.
People have to comment to get it.

Then they receive a guide on how to use Buzzclip to create their own AI avatar.
Inside that guide, they find a promo code valid for only 48 hours.

Urgency + value + story.

And it’s working. Slowly, but working.

Because good marketing isn’t about hacking algorithms.
It’s about helping people in public.

The Quiet Truth (spend 50% of your time in Marketing)

Some days, I still wish I could just build in silence.
But silence kills even the best ideas.

If you want your creation to live,
you have to give it a voice.

Marketing isn’t the enemy of creation.
It’s what keeps it alive.

So if you’re building something
spend half your time building it,
and the other half telling the world why it matters.

Because no one will care until you make them feel why they should.

And that’s your job.

Summary of what I’ve learned so far

• Building teaches logic. Marketing teaches empathy.

• No one cares until you make them care.

• Spend 50% of your time on Marketing

• Marketing isn’t lying. It’s storytelling with data.

Thanks for reading,
Eric

(P.S. If you’re struggling to market your product, you’re not behind. You’re just early.)