Distribution When the buyer is slow and offline, solve distribution before you write code
Dad of one, co-founder of three
For Mile's church software, the hard problem is not building it, it is reaching buyers who move slowly, decide over long cycles, and are nowhere near Product Hunt. When the buyer is that offline, distribution cannot be an afterthought you bolt on at launch, because there is no quick launch channel waiting for you. Map the path to the buyer (who decides, how long it takes, which channel they trust) while the product is still a concept, and let that path shape what you build. Writing all the code first and discovering you cannot reach anyone is the most expensive order to do it in.
Related advice
Mile Rosu Sell into slow buyers on their timeline, not yours
Churches buy slowly, so Mile's sale runs on the church's clock, not his own preference for a fast close. In a slow-moving, relationship-driven market, pushing for speed reads as not understanding the buyer, while patient, in-person presence reads as someone worth working with. The long buying cycle is not a bug to fight, it is the texture of the relationship, and accepting it is part of the qualification. Show up, build the relationship the organization needs, and let the deal close when the buyer is ready instead of when your roadmap wants it to.
Mile Rosu Choose a hard, offline, unglamorous niche on purpose
Mile deliberately picked church management software, an offline, slow-moving, decidedly unglamorous niche, because that is precisely what keeps casual competitors away. Nobody is racing to pitch a church admin tool at a demo day, which leaves the field open to whoever is patient enough to learn the domain. A transaction-heavy organization with no software built for it is a genuine opportunity hiding behind a boring label. The unglamorous niche is not the consolation prize, it is the one a committed builder can own while everyone else chases something shinier.
Mile Rosu Nail one specific pain before you build the full suite
Mile's instinct was the full church management suite (scheduling, memberships, donations, communications) and the room talked him down to one pain point first: billing, or scheduling, or member communication, solved completely. The biggest risk in a specific niche is building something too generic to be worth switching to, a vague all-in-one that fixes nobody's actual Monday. A narrow tool that ends one real misery gives a buyer a concrete reason to say yes, and a wedge you can expand from later. Decide which single pain you will own, finish that, and earn the right to the suite instead of assuming it.
Mile Rosu Recruit a friendly customer as a design partner and co-build
Rather than guess at church workflows from the outside, Mile's plan is to recruit one friendly church as a design partner and build the product alongside them. A design partner who lives the problem corrects your wrong assumptions before they become wrong code: the donation flow that does not match how the treasurer works, the schedule you never thought to model. For early feedback, meet the buyer where they already are, in WhatsApp groups and local community channels, and target the people who handle the tech, the church IT contact or the volunteer keeping the spreadsheets alive. Co-building with one real customer beats a polished product designed for an imaginary one.
Extracted from
Building Church Software Before I Wrote a Line of Code