Hey Pop Army,

Since we’ve been getting so many requests to document our journey of building PopHop, we thought of starting a Build in Public blog series right here on our site.

So here we gooooo!

I’m Tim, founder of PopHop, and I’ll be writing this series going forward. This is our first release.

Our story goes back to the time when COVID was a thing. Two online friends got together and started a client servicing agency in the software development field. Then two more members joined the founding team, and we officially started an agency to serve clients in Sri Lanka.

After a few months, two founding members decided to step down. One had plans to move abroad and the other wanted to go in a different direction that didn’t align with ours. So they left, and we moved forward.

After that, we wanted to build a product because we were having a hard time dealing with agency clients. We realized our passion was to build something.

While running our agency, we had the privilege to work with someone from the United Kingdom. Together, we ran a productized design agency that offered unlimited graphic design services for a flat monthly rate.

But while doing that, we ran into a major problem.

We had to use multiple tools to manage our business: one for payments, one for communication, one for file sharing, and so on. Managing everything became messy, and client communication was inefficient. So we started solving this problem.

We began building our first product, a productized agency management solution. But things got tough. A few employees left, and we were left with only UI designs and one developer.

At that time, I wanted to start a mastermind community for people interested in building productized service businesses. We already had experience running one, so I thought, “Why not share our knowledge and help others do the same?”

So we started building the community.

Then the next problem came in.

To manage my community, I had to use several tools again: Excel to manage data, bank accounts to collect payments, Google Drive to share files, and so on.

We researched to see if there was a single tool that could handle all of this.

We came across a few options:

CIRCLE – Too costly and complex for a small community that is just starting out.
SKOOL – Also costly and had very limited features.
NAS – A good option but too admin-focused. Members didn’t really feel part of a community.

That’s when it hit us.

This was the moment we were waiting for.

Let's build something that really matters.

That was the birth of PopHop.

Well, actually, it had a different name back then: TRIBEZ.

But we couldn’t use that name since it was already taken. So we came up with Pop. Because Pop is a culture. There’s community around it. Then we added Hop as a rhyming word.

And that’s how PopHop was born.

At that point, I had some savings, so we started building PopHop seriously. The only developer who stayed with us from the beginning became a founding team member. We gave her some shares as gratitude, and she’s now a co-owner.

I was handling finances, and my co-founder took care of design and team operations. Our new founding member led development.

We started building PopHop on March 12th, 2024.

In December 2024, we launched it for my own community. It was a disaster. So many bugs. Bugs that should never have been there. Bugs that were just obvious.

I was so mad. I was spending all my savings, and the team was delivering something that was not ready.

So we sat down, discussed everything, and started fixing bugs. It took about three months to make the product stable. Then we did another soft launch in March 2025.

To be honest, this is not how you should build a product. Don’t take this story as advice or inspiration. We spent a year building without proper validation. Don’t do that.

Even after the second launch, we found more bugs, but this time they were manageable.

I also wanted to add an LMS feature, so the team started building that.

Now here’s something I’ve learned that I want to share with all founders:

If you’re building in a highly competitive niche, you can’t afford to create something less than what’s already out there. You can’t just build a small MVP and expect people to switch from mature products. The standard is already set. You have to be better.

That’s the cost you have to bear if you’re entering a competitive market.

If you pick a market with less competition, it’s different. There are plenty of unsolved problems you can go after. But if you’re going after the big ones, buckle up. The ride will not be smooth.

Anyway, back to the story.

After the second launch, we kept improving and adding features. By the end of June, we had a version we were proud of.

Then came July 2025, our official public launch.

It felt amazing.

Even though I wanted to do a big campaign, we didn’t push too hard because we were in talks with AppSumo for a possible LTD launch, and I was also planning a Product Hunt release.

So on August 12th, we launched internationally on Product Hunt.

Guess what?

We became Top 5 Product of the Day.

One hell of a ride.

I’ll stop writing here for now, but in the next article, I’ll talk about our Product Hunt launch in detail. I’ll share how we did it, our exact campaign plan, and a step-by-step checklist so you can launch successfully too.

Thank you for being with us and supporting us.

I promise to keep writing this series until we become a unicorn company.

Stay tuned.

More things to come. 🚀

– Tim
Founder, PopHop