What my first failed project taught me

The student resource platform I built in 2021 barely got used. At the time, that felt like a verdict on my ability.

It wasn't. It was a verdict on my process — I built what I assumed students wanted, instead of asking them.

Every project since has started with a version of the same question: who is this actually for, and have I talked to them?

Failure, it turns out, is just information delivered a little too late to be comfortable.