Why I spent four years building a dream instead of a product

December 18, 2025 · translated from Russian

End of the year, and I am reflecting on the last four years of being a founder.

From mission-driven motivation to solving a real problem.
Or why I spent almost four years building a dream instead of a working product.

This is a painful text, but an honest one.

For a long time I was driven not by a problem but by a mission.
Not by a specific user's pain, but by an idea:
how it should be,
what is right,
how the world gets better if.

As a feeling, that is very strong energy.
It gives you meaning, elevation, the sense that you are doing something important.
You are not just a founder, you are almost a prophet.

And that is the first trap.

Mission-driven is not problem-driven.

A mission almost always lives in the future.
A problem always lives now.

I was not building because somebody was suffering every day and was ready to pay.
I was building because:
it seemed more right to me,
I could see the big picture,
I believed the market would grow into it,
I was confusing the depth of an idea with the value of a product.

That is a very subtle place to lie to yourself.
You work a lot, think a lot, reflect a lot,
and sell nothing.

Delusion, from the inside, does not look like stupidity.
It looks like:
we are just early
it needs a bit more work
the market does not understand it yet
we need to explain it better
this is a long-term play

I lived inside that logic for years.
And every time I found an intellectually beautiful explanation for why there was still no result.

The most dangerous part is that a mission justifies the absence of feedback.
No money? I say I am not in it for the money.
No users? I am not building for the mass market.
No growth? I am laying a foundation.

The disappointment did not arrive at once.
It arrived when I understood one simple thing:

I am not solving a sharp, specific problem that someone will pay for.
I am implementing my own picture of the world.

That was a heavy moment.
Because your identity collapses along with it:
I am doing something important
I am special
I understand this more deeply than others

What is left is an empty and very unpleasant place:
reality with no justifications.

Going from mission-driven to problem-driven is not a pivot.
It is a hit to the ego.

You have to give up the beautiful story,
narrow the scope,
admit that your dream does not equal a market,
start with something small, grounded and uncomfortable.

A real problem looks ugly.
It is limited.
It is often boring.
But people pay for it.

I do not know a universal recipe for getting out.
But I know a few signs that you are:
you start watching people's behaviour instead of your vision
whether they pay matters more to you than whether they get the idea
you are willing to throw away months of work without trying to justify them
you stop defending the product and start listening to the pain

It is not inspiring.
It does bring you back to earth.

I do not regret the years I spent.
But I no longer romanticise them.

A mission without a solvable problem is a form of escapism.
Very intelligent, very beautiful, but escapism.

If you are a founder and you feel stuck,
maybe you are building a dream right now too,
and not a solution.

I am definitely tired of building the dream. I go into 2026 empty, wrung out, and with a much clearer sense of where to go.