No easy wins.

I wrote a fantasy football management system (supermug) and a subscription based fantasy football help site and community (draftwizard) before most people had even heard of fantasy football or 'web apps'.

I wrote a SaaS web service (statsfeed) before any of those terms were coined.

I wrote a recommendation system on your social feed (knowaboutit) when 'data science' was just becoming a thing.

I wrote a search engine for blog posts and comment systems (gawk it).

I'm also a published author (by APress and O'Reilly), co-founder of a handful of (small but successful) businesses, and have built a ton of other apps, services, and things.

AND YET...

I *still* struggle to build an audience, gain users, and generate revenue for every single new project.

So don't be fooled by the "I built this thing in 2 weeks, with no code, and already have so much success" posts (they are either the very rare exception to the rule, being very liberal with the term 'success', or just flat out lying).

No matter what your resume is -- there is *real* work in making things *work*.

So rather than looking for the easy wins, quick flips, and keeping up with the (fake) Jones’ of social media. Follow people like @businessbarista @jspujji @dherman76 and @garyvee who are consistent with their message over the long haul, real about their challenges/experiences, and building authentic audiences over time through dedicated effort.

p.s. B/C I'm so focused on the 'build' of most ideas, I've never been great or focused on the audience building part...this is partially why I continue to struggle with each new project. I strongly believe that if there *is* a shortcut to success in today's environment...it's 100% about having a pre-existing, authentic, audience ready to benefit from your 'new' thing.