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Past the Build · Issue #1

$488 a month, and he kept going

One positioning fix to make this week, the year Bannerbear barely moved, and one job to hand off.

By Daniel Chong · · 4-minute read

Hi, I’m Daniel. Welcome to the first issue.

Once a week: one business skill, one real founder’s story, a short push from me, and one job you can hand off. Free and complete, every time.

1. The lesson: Say the job, not the feature

Most builders describe their product the way they built it: “AI-powered dashboard with real-time sync and a REST API.” True, but that’s how it sounds to you, not to the person with the problem.

People don’t buy features. They hire your product to get a job done. “Stop hand-making 40 product images every morning” is a job. “Template-based image generation” is a feature. Same product, very different reaction.

Positioning is picking which job you lead with, and for whom. When it’s off, everything downstream feels hard: cold emails get ignored, the homepage gets nods but no sign-ups. It looks like a marketing problem. Usually it’s the first sentence.

Try this week:

  1. Write your homepage headline as “[Who] can finally [job they’re trying to get done].” No feature words allowed.
  2. Send it to three actual customers or prospects. Ask one question: “Is this the reason you’d use it? If not, what is?”
  3. Use their words, not yours. Swap the headline. Leave it for two weeks before judging it.

2. The long road: Jon Yongfook and Bannerbear

In January 2019, Jon Yongfook left his job with two years of savings. He spent most of the first year on a “12 startups in 12 months” challenge and launched seven products. None made direct revenue; none had a revenue model. He later wrote that he “only got serious after burning 1 year” of savings.

Then he focused. Late in 2019 he launched Previewmojo, which generated social preview images from a narrow set of templates. It reached $400 a month. The response, in his words, was “a bit lukewarm.” He kept going.

In early 2020 he rebranded as Bannerbear. Traffic rose; sales didn’t. MRR: $472. His conclusion: the market was too small. Niche down your target market, he wrote, not the pain point you solve.

So he pivoted to an image-generation API, which cost him some early customers, and pulled out of the Shopify app store. MRR in spring 2020: $488. Over a year after quitting, and barely moving.

What changed next wasn’t a growth hack. For six months he alternated: one week coding, one week tweeting and blogging about what he’d shipped. By October 2020, MRR was $6,109. By January 2021, after repositioning Bannerbear around two jobs (automating and scaling marketing), it was $10,455.

The lesson isn’t “pivot.” The flat months were when he found the right market, product and rhythm. That work doesn’t show on a revenue chart until it pays off.

Source: Jon Yongfook, “Journey to $10K MRR”, bannerbear.com

3. Mentor’s note

If your numbers have been flat, I won’t tell you it’s fine. Flat is information. It’s not a verdict.

Look at what Jon actually did: he changed one big thing at a time and gave each change months to show up. This week, pick the one thing you think is most wrong and fix only that. Most people don’t fail because they’re slow. They fail because they stop.

4. Hand it off

You don’t have time to do this week’s lesson and everything else. Here’s help. Nobody paid to be listed. (Full disclosure: I use Grok Bot to help research and write Past the Build.)

Main pick: Grok Bot
Takes off your plate: the research grind. It’s an AI assistant with its own cloud computer (browser, files, terminal), so it can work in your apps and on websites while your laptop is closed, and comes back to you when something needs your approval.
For: solo owners with more tasks than hours.
Price: included from the Premium plan, $30/month (plus tax). Usage is a weekly pool; extra usage is paid top-ups.
Try this week: ask it to gather the exact words customers use about your problem (your reviews, support emails, public forums) and draft five headlines in the “[Who] can finally [job]” format. Then you pick, and you send them to your three people.

Quick alternates

  • Fathom records and transcribes your calls, with AI summaries. For: anyone doing customer interviews. Price: free for individuals; Premium is $20/month, less if billed yearly. Try: record your three headline conversations so you keep their wording, not your memory of it.
  • Lyssna runs five-second tests: people see your page briefly, then say what it does. For: checking a headline with strangers. Price: free plan with 15 self-recruited responses; panel responses cost extra. Try: test old vs. new headline.

5. Free: the After-Build Kit

Here’s something of mine to go with this week’s lesson. The After-Build Kit is four plain, fill-in-the-blanks tools for the work after launch: a positioning worksheet (this week’s headline exercise, step by step), a first-10-users tracker, a 30-day post-launch checklist, and 3 cold message templates. It’s free.

Get the After-Build Kit →

6. If you read one thing this month

Obviously Awesome by April Dunford. The clearest book I know on positioning.

Hit reply and tell me the job your product does. I read every reply.

Keep going,
Daniel

Know someone building alone? Forward this to them.

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