I almost listed a product I never built

I almost listed a product I never built

While cleaning up my profiles this week, I found something in my "shipped" list that was never actually a product.

It was a fake-door landing page. One page with a price and a button, built to test whether anyone would pay before I wrote any real code. The button did not charge anything. It just measured interest.

Useful test. But somewhere along the way it slipped into my story as a product I built. It was not.

So I cut it.

The slow rounding-up

It is easy to round up when you build in public. A validation test becomes a "launch". A prototype becomes a "product". A waitlist becomes "traction". Each step feels small. Together they turn your story into something you cannot back up.

A fake-door page is one of the cheapest ways to test demand. It is just not a product, and calling it one costs the one thing an audience is here for: trusting what you say about your own work.

Keeping the list short and real for now.