“Over the next two and a half years I built and launched five products that made in total a whopping zero dollars. It taught me three fundamental things. Firstly, distribution matters. Secondly, monetization matters from day one. Thirdly, you need to focus on building painkillers, not vitamins.”

Monetize from day one — lesson learned from five products that made zero dollars

Rob's hard-won rule after 5 zero-dollar launches: charge from day one. No indefinite free tier, no 'we'll figure out pricing later.' Willingness-to-pay is a product hypothesis that must be tested on launch day — every month you defer it is another month of building blind.