Why Developers Make Terrible Founders (And How I Fixed It Building MirrorLog) Dev Stories That Matter

Developers make terrible founders.
I know because I'm both.
The problem? We fall in love with elegant code, not solving problems.

Here's what building MirrorLog taught me

What I WANTED to build: A wallet system with race condition protection, DB transactions, optimistic locking, 2FA, audit trails...

Beautiful code. Zero bugs. Production-ready.

What users ACTUALLY needed: "Can I get paid for my Instagram content?"

See the gap?

The "so what?" test:

❌ "I built a wallet with concurrent transaction handling" So what?

✅ "Nigerian creators can now receive cash tips on their posts, no bank account needed. Just a username." That's value.

What I shipped:

• Show Love feature - Fans tip creators directly on posts (like Patreon, but instant)
• Giveaway sponsorships - Brands pay creators 30% to run contests (62% to winners, 8% platform fee)
• Creator contests - Top posts win cash prizes (gamified engagement)
• Wallet system - Send/receive money using @username (built the race-condition stuff, but users don't care about that)

The reality check:

All my fancy backend architecture? Users don't see it. They see: "I posted content. I made ₦5,000. I withdrew to my bank."

That's the "so what?"

The hard lesson:

I spent 3 weeks perfecting wallet transaction isolation levels. Users spent <3 seconds deciding if they trust the platform.

Tech debt can wait. Trust can't.

What actually moved the needle:

• Fast activation (wallet setup in under 2 minutes)
• Clear value prop ("Make money from your content")
• Social proof (real-time notifications when someone gets tipped)
• Low friction (no KYC for small amounts, just username)

The engineering? It enables this. But it's not the product.

Non-technical founders get this intuitively:

They ask: "Will people pay for this?"
I asked: "Can I build this elegantly?"

Wrong question. Built it anyway.

The pivot:

Now I build features backwards:

1. What outcome does the user want?
2. What's the simplest path there?
3. What infrastructure enables that?

Code last. User first.

Real example:

Giveaway feature. My instinct: "Build a sophisticated algorithm with provably fair random selection, blockchain verification..."

User need: "I want to give ₦10k to 5 people who comment on my post."

Shipped the simple version. Iterated from real usage.

The founder mindset I learned:

Tech is a commodity. Your ability to solve a real problem is not.

Anyone can learn to code (I did). Not everyone can identify a real problem worth solving.

MirrorLog isn't special because of the code. It's special because Nigerian creators have no easy way to monetize outside ads.

That's the "so what?"

What I'd tell my past self:

Ship ugly MVP. Get real users. Listen to them.

Then build the beautiful concurrent wallet system.

Not the other way around.

What's working now:

Creators earning their first ₦1,000 online, ever.
Brands finding micro-influencers they couldn't access before.
Students making money from their Twitter/IG content.

The tech stack? Laravel + MySQL. Nothing fancy. Just works.

The irony:

The race condition protection I was so proud of? Only matters because users showed up first.

I almost built the perfect system for zero users.

For devs building products:

Code is how you solve the problem. Product-market fit is knowing WHICH problem.

Non-technical founders nail the second part. We get stuck on the first.

Learn from them.

MirrorLog: Social fintech for African creators. Built by a dev who learned to think like a founder.

Try it: mirrorlog.com

What's your "so what?" moment? Drop it below 👇