From Developer to Founder: What No One Tells You

For many years, I proudly defined myself as a software developer. Solving technical problems, writing clean code, optimizing, refactoring, scaling. That was my comfort zone.

Then I decided to build my own products: Mr. Popup and Suippy. I thought the hardest part would be technical. Spoiler: it wasn’t.

The transition from developer to founder is not a level-up. It’s an entirely different game.

I Thought Coding Was the Hard Part (It Isn’t)

When I started Mr. Popup, my mind was focused on architecture, AI, automations, integrations, and performance. Technically, the product worked. But the real question wasn’t whether it worked. It was:

• Can someone understand what this is in five seconds?
• Do users recognize themselves in the problem?
• Is this solving a real pain, or just a clever technical idea?

That’s when I learned something uncomfortable: A technically brilliant solution to a poorly validated problem is still just nice code.

The Biggest Change Wasn’t Technical. It Was Mental.

As a developer, I used to ask: “How do I implement this?” As a founder, the question became: “Should this exist like this?”

With Suippy, this shift became even clearer. Suippy is not finished. It’s currently in a validation phase, with a landing page, testing messaging. Not features. And that’s intentional.

In the past, I would have built the full product first and validated later. Now I understand that this is exactly backward. Suippy is teaching me to:

• Avoid jumping into code too early
• Test the message before the solution
• See if people actually want this before building it

People Don’t Want Your Product. They Want to Feel Understood.

This became very clear with Mr. Popup. I was talking about AI analysis, website scanning, automation flows. Users were thinking:

• “I want my website to convert better”
• “I don’t know what popup to use”
• “I don’t have time to think about this”

The product didn’t change that much. The language did.

With Suippy, the challenge isn’t even technical yet. It’s finding the right words to describe a pain users already feel but can’t fully articulate. That’s when it clicked:

• Copy is not marketing. It’s product.
• The landing page is part of the MVP
• If you don’t connect emotionally, users never reach the technical part

Building Is Comfortable. Validation and Distribution Are Not.

Building Mr. Popup felt comfortable. Validating and distributing it did not. Posting. Explaining. Repeating yourself. Getting ignored. Getting criticized. Iterating.

With Suippy, the discomfort looks different but feels the same:

• Not building yet
• Resisting the urge to “just ship code”
• Accepting that the idea may need to change… or die

That led to a key realization: Validation and distribution don’t come after the product. They are part of the product.

Soft Skills I Never Thought I’d Need

Engineering school didn’t prepare me for this:

• Writing for humans, not machines
• Explaining what you do without mentioning the stack
• Listening to feedback without defending yourself
• Accepting that your original idea was incomplete
• Living with constant uncertainty

Being a founder has been more about judgment, patience, and emotional endurance than technical skill.

The Product Is Not What You Think. It’s What Users Perceive.

Both projects taught me the same lesson, at different moments: The product doesn’t live in the repository. It lives in the user’s mind. Mr. Popup taught me this after building. Suippy is teaching me this before. I wish someone had told me this before I wrote so much unnecessary code.

I No Longer Want to Be “Just a Good Developer”

I still love code. I still enjoy building. But today, I understand that my role as a founder is to:

• Reduce uncertainty
• Create clarity
• Make uncomfortable decisions
• Decide what not to build (yet)

Code is a tool. A SaaS is a full system: problem, message, validation, distribution. And only then, software.

A Final, Honest Thought

If you’re thinking about going from developer to founder, here’s what I’d tell you: It’s not easier. It’s not faster. It’s not more glamorous. But it is more real.

And if Mr. Popup and Suippy have taught me anything, it’s this: Building software is writing code. Building a SaaS is understanding people, even before you build anything.