The distribution challenge for developer tools is underrated. You can build something genuinely useful but if it doesn't surface in the exact moment a developer hits the pain point (a Stack Overflow answer, a GitHub readme, a CLI error message), adoption is slow regardless of quality. The most successful small dev tools I've seen all had an 'ambient discovery' strategy built in from day one — not just SEO, but being present in the actual error-state contexts where the need arises.