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Hello rebel ideapreneurs 🦸♂️🦸♀️
Hailey writes a weekly newsletter about gluten-free baking that actually tastes good.
It started after her own diagnosis turned every recipe into a science project.
To her, gluten-free should feel like a treat, not a punishment.
And her readers? They feel it too — missing real bread, tired of dry substitutes.
⛳️ Problem:
Hailey spends three months building a gluten-free baking course in secret.
She perfects every lesson before showing a single soul.
Then launch day comes.
She sends it to her quiet list — and seven people buy. Ouch.
A whole year of building, and she still doesn't know what they wanted.
Her problem: how to build something people are guaranteed to buy.
🔥 The recipe
➡️ The minimalist entrepreneur
Picture opening a restaurant before tasting your own cooking.
You guess the menu, print it, and pray people show up.
Most product launches work exactly like that — build first, hope second.
That's what Sahil Lavingia flipped on its head.
He founded Gumroad, which has paid creators over $600 million.
His take: the audience should come first, not the product.
Gather people around a shared problem.
Let them tell you what to build.
And get this — that's how Gumroad itself grew.
Lavingia gathered creators, listened to what they kept asking for, then built it.
So launch day stops being a gamble.
The buyers were already there before the product existed.
🚗 The steps
👥 Step 1 — Gather a community around the problem.
Think of a neighborhood block party.
Nobody sells anything yet.
People just show up because they share the same street.
Before building anything, bring together the folks who share the pain.
A newsletter, a group, a comment thread — anywhere they can gather.
Hailey starts a free weekly "gluten-free wins and fails" thread.
Readers swap their disasters and their small victories.
The community forms before any product exists.
👂 Step 2 — Learn exactly what they need.
Ever notice how a good doctor asks before prescribing?
They listen until the real problem is obvious — then they act.
Do the same here.
Listen to the community until the pattern jumps out.
They'll hand you the product if you let them.
Hailey reads months of threads.
The same ache shows up again and again: "I just want bread that rises."
That's the product, named for her by the crowd.
🛠️ Step 3 — Build the thing they already asked for.
It's like a kid handing you their birthday wish list.
You're not guessing the gift anymore — you're just delivering it.
Now make exactly what the community named.
No guessing.
You're filling a request they wrote themselves.
Hailey builds a short "gluten-free bread that actually rises" course.
She sells it back to the same thread that named the problem.
Sixty buy in the first week, because it's the thing they asked for.
The prompt below turns "what should I build?" into a community-first plan.
You just tell it your audience and the problem you share with them.
🧸 Community first + listen + build = a product that sells itself.
🏄♀️ The prompt
Save this prompt as a Skill or add to Project in your favorite AI tool — build once, use often.
Update your input values in the prompt or just run as is, your AI sidekick will use the example values and will give output.
CONTEXT:
- (use what's available, fall back to the inline values)
- If my Voice Profile exists, write in that voice. Otherwise, write in a clear, warm, no-jargon voice — first-person, plain words, no startup-speak.
- If my ICP / Audience doc exists, target that reader. Otherwise, use the audience below.
Inputs:
The product I'm tempted to build in secret (the thing I want to perfect before showing anyone):
{e.g. a full gluten-free baking course — I want all 12 lessons done before I launch}
The problem I share with my audience (the pain that could gather a community):
{e.g. gluten-free baking that's dry and sad — we all miss real bread}
Where my people could gather (the space I could create for them to talk):
{e.g. a weekly thread in my newsletter, a small group chat, a comments section}
For Outcome: {e.g. a community-first plan — how to gather, what to listen for, and how to build what they ask for}
Outputs:
1. The gathering move — the simplest way to bring my audience together around the shared problem this month (a thread, a prompt, a group).
2. The listening plan — what to watch for in the community so the real, repeated need becomes obvious.
3. The build signal — how to know when the community has clearly named the product I should make.
4. The "stop building in secret" note — the one change to make now so I'm learning from people instead of guessing alone.
Then name the ONE assumption about my product I should test with the community before building another piece of it.
One community gathered around a real pain.
One need the crowd named for you.
One product they were always going to buy.
That's it, my fellow renegades!
Yours 'making your AI sidekick work intelligently and exactly the way you want while you sleep' Vijay Peduru 🦸♂️