Most founders have built at least one thing that nobody wanted. Looking back, there was usually a sign well before the end.
Reply with:
- What you built, in a line
- The first sign that it was not going to work
- How long you kept going after that sign
- What you told yourself to explain the sign away
Signs that come up again and again:
- People said "this is great" and then did not sign up.
- Signups arrived but nobody came back in week two.
- Every sale needed a long explanation.
- The only users were other founders.
- You were more interested in building the next feature than in talking to a user.
- Nobody was annoyed when it went down.
The fourth question is the valuable one. The stories founders tell themselves ("they will get it once the next feature ships") are remarkably similar from one founder to the next, and seeing someone else's written down makes your own easier to spot.