you messaged me?

Hey Bestie,

This week, a handful of people messaged me privately to congratulate me on Swipefast.

I replied, said thank you, and didn’t think much of it.

Then later that evening, it came back to me.

And I felt more grateful than I expected.

Not because I launched some software.

More because I started thinking about what it actually takes to bring an idea into the world.

For most of my career, I built things for other people.

At my agency, there was usually a brief.

A client.

A problem someone had already decided was worth solving.

Building your own thing feels different.

There’s no brief.

Nobody really tells you what matters, whether the problem is real enough, or what should come next.

You just make your best guess and keep moving.

Over the last 6 months, I’ve found myself doing research, mapping user journeys, designing interfaces, working on databases and security, connecting the frontend to the backend, setting up servers, answering support tickets, logging bugs, shipping features, writing campaigns, thinking about churn, retention, recurring revenue…

All while wondering whether any of it is actually the right thing to be doing.

I’ve made more than 1,400 commits (https://x.com/thejacobpegs/status/2104672086824452146?s=46) trying to turn this thing into something useful.

And that number made me stop for a second.

Because at the beginning, an idea weighs nothing.

It exists in your head.

Nobody can see it.

So no one cares about it yet.

And there are no customers.

No revenue.

No proof you aren’t just spending 6 months building something no one wants.

Then you keep showing up.

You move something two pixels.

Delete something you spent three days building.

Rewrite a page.

Break something.

Fix it.

Change your mind.

Change it back.

And eventually, almost without noticing, something imaginary becomes real.

Something that only existed in your head starts being used by other people.

I still find that a little strange.

Maybe even magical.

And I think the thing I’m learning is that products are rarely just collections of features.

They’re beliefs.

They quietly say:

“I think this should work differently.”

Stripe thought taking payments online should be easier.

Uber thought getting a ride shouldn’t begin with waving your arm at the side of a road.

The iPhone made a pretty big bet that the internet shouldn’t stay attached to a desk.

Obviously Swipefast is not any of those things.

Not even remotely close.

But I do think the same principle applies at a much smaller scale.

I kept looking at how one-person businesses sell online and thinking:

Why does this need to be so complicated?

Why does selling one thing often mean stitching together 5 or 6 tools?

Why do you sometimes have to move half your business into somebody else’s ecosystem just to get a decent checkout?

Why does the software start becoming the business?

I’m not sure yet what category Swipefast belongs in.

Maybe it’s just checkout software.

Maybe it becomes what is resonating for me that I’m calling offer infrastructure.

Maybe that sounds far too grand and I’ll cringe reading this in a year.

Entirely possible.

But the idea I keep coming back to is very simple.

The business is the idea.

The offer.

The person behind it.

The software should mostly get out of the way.

So that’s what we’re trying to build.

Not another giant all-in-one.

Not somewhere you need to migrate your whole business.

I think of it like a very simple layer between:

“I made something.”

and “Someone bought it.”

…We’re still early.

There’s a lot I don’t know yet.

But 6 months ago this thing only existed in my head.

Now people are using it.

And this week, some of them took the time to message me and say well done.

That meant more than I realized in the moment.

So thank you.

Swipefast.io (https://swipefast.io) - we’re onto something.

Back to building.

Your biggest fan,
Jacob “reflective” Pegs

oh look, a hooman!