Building for a billion
Sometimes, I wonder, what does it take for a billion?
Whether that's customers, paid monthly users, free users, etc, etc.
And at modern times, I'm just like "Okay, a chat input with output results set to yes (All of the ChatGPT, Caudi's, Groks)
Then, I think "It has to be so much more than that, right?"
While I haven't been anywhere near any projects reaching a billion users, a couple of million, yes.
And so I think this might be helpful to those aspiring, myself included.
Building for a billion, I believe, it requires finding a genuine, valuable problem to solve.
I think it's more than customer service, more than input/output, more than word-of-mouth. I fear that it's greater than what most can imagine, almost like the ever expanding universe.
Where would we begin on this journey?
I think it starts with research, not an idea, but research.
I think there's still real problems to be solved, I think it requires more than just "Oh that's a problem let me fix it" but real connectivity to it, Solving it and kind of solidifying it.
So...
Research.
Adaptive design, Easy onboarding,
Development that won't collapse.
Marketing (an infinite loop).
Onset billion mindset.
And you maybe thinking, "Carter, what about finding the value for maximum return on investment?" and while that is a valid consideration.... I can confidently say, 99.9% of people thinking in this scope will tell you money is not the mission, money is not the objective, money does not matter in a project aspiring to be so big. My mentor who's been on my side for 3 + years, has made $1M + MRR for 2 years running, all the meals, drinks, and time he's spent with me has been on his dime, please hear me out, in this scenario, money isn't mission, not even legacy, the mission is to build something that's unforgettably impactful. This is one of those projects that you ought to seek outlasts you and provides for your family for the next handful of generations.
Yeah, so starting out with Research.
While this maybe confusing, "Underlining understandings" maybe a better term than "Research".
Remember, the goal here is to find, and underline people's particular issue to solve.
Underling understandings will most likely be in conversations with real people, finding out what problems people are having by listening in on conversations (reading words too), so you could analyze a Linkedin or Reddit post, you could also checkout similar products, and their reviews, and see what issues people are saying about them.
Adaptive design, Easy onboarding.
Essentially, this could be summed into a "Strong onboarding flow", Ideally, adaptive targets something that feels relatable, something they've felt like they've used before but not exact, and easier to adapt to. Flowing into adaptive design, easy and I mean easy onboarding. Magic links (Where users input their phone or email and get a login link), or SSO (Single sign-on, like Apple, Google, Social Media logins), now taking it a step further, Paid accounts. If your platform has a premium option, I highly suggest that that you actually don't follow the "Three tier pricing options", but rather, limiting it to 1-2 options with an optimal monthly/yearly switch. Looking for a reference to this? As of August 8th, 2025, https://screen.studio/#pricingis really lovely, and while he could update the "once for lifetime" option, the monthly/yearly is ideal. Shoutout to Screen Studio, incredible application that set the SaaS world on fire.
Along with that, enrolling for premium should be just as easy as creating an account... Apple pay, Google pay, Whatever other pay you've got going on as possible, I use Stripe for most of my flows, LemonSqueezy is another that seems to be industry standard. There are a few others out there for international or specific use, although I have no experience with them, Oh and Ayden, Ayden is another one that seems to be growing in the space.
Again, ensure that the easiest enrollment options are available, one to two taps to enroll at max. And going back on what I said about money, it's not important however it's good to note what an easy paying onboarding process looks and feels like.
Development that won't collapse.
While this, along with everything else, is easier said than done. For certain.
You should be ready to make devloping improvements, instantly.
It's definitely difficult to have your platform fully functional across all browsers, viewpoints, and hardwares, and I know it sounds crazy but almost every other experience is different.
Your experience from a development stand point, should be as smooth and as enjoyable as possible to your users.
Marketing (an infinite loop)
This section is really interesting, honestly, marketing seems to take a drastic new direction every six months or so. With it, I think that "word of mouth" is still king, just there's a new age of word of mouth, social media.
A lot of people in today's time would probably say the traditional "Oh get a nice camera, make either storytelling or sales-pitching content, and drive content to your platform", and sure, that's right, just it's not complete.
So marketing, and content, requires an ability to connect congruently with an audience. It's great getting 100M views.... it's better getting X% of that to put forward in motion your call to action. (Insert whatever number you please to replace the 100M, insert whatever % you need to count as successful by your definition).
