In reply to Blake.

That is closer to the direction I went in after several years. I suppose it was a little easier once I had that established user base. I could build the product in a public beta, get direct feedback during the build, and market it to folks I knew would be early adopters.

My problem is that I had too many projects and didn't focus enough on the ones that built my user base. That was a tough lesson to learn.

My most successful projects though were easily those had plenty of early communication. That buildup of excitement made for great word-of-mouth advertising.