I've been struggling as a software founder. I've discovered a huge challenge. It's one no one seems to be talking about. And this is one thing that AI can't solve for me. A few years back, I read (and loved) 10X is Easier Than 2X. I believed that doing hard work could catapult our business. Software was gonna be the thing. I rationalized that my unfair advantage was a base of loyal customers and fans. So I went on a long and windy journey. I hired the development team. Built the prototype. Brought the work in-house. Scrapped it all. Started again, and again. Barrier, smashed. Next barrier, smashed. Shoulders starting to hurt. Oh no, another barrier… I broke all the rules by NOT building a minimum viable product. Instead, I built something our team uses every day. But when it came time to release NoteGo to the world, I faced a whole new set of challenges. At first, it was persuading people to get a free account. That was a messaging issue. Solved. Then it was getting them to try the software. That was an onboarding issue. Mostly solved. But now it's something different. And this is the part I've never heard anyone talk about. How do you get people to keep using the software? Because it's one thing to set up a free account and try something once. But that doesn't lead to a successful outcome down the road. Getting people to regularly use my software is the biggest barrier I've reached thus far. In my case, we are similar to Loom, but focused on tasks like giving feedback, documenting processes, sharing ideas, and replacing meetings. But layered in with AI intelligence. If people don't make and share a video with our tool, they likely end their experience with us. So I worked to reposition our software around making the communication between remote people better. This involved fully repositioning the sales page, changing the product offerings, and a fully recrafted email onboarding sequence. This has been a very heavy lift. I don't have it all figured out yet, but I can tell that each day I am moving in the right direction. My vision is to have 100,000 customers by the end of 2026. Today, I am at the starting line. I hope to write a lot more about the journey. Have you thought about starting a software company? I'd love to hear from you. - @Mike_Stelzner