30+ comments. Usage barely moved. I was measuring the wrong thing.
My last post about blockmade got 30+ comments.
That was encouraging. But usage barely moved.
So I think I was measuring the wrong thing.
blockmade starts with a ready-made workspace, then lets you change the Blocks until it fits the way you actually work.
The idea is simple: if you keep paying for a full SaaS mostly because of one workflow, maybe you shouldn’t need the whole thing.
The comments showed me the idea can start a conversation. They did not show me that someone would actually change how they work.
So I’m testing that now.
If you pay for a tool mainly for one workflow, open the closest template in blockmade and change one thing to make it yours:
https://blockmade.tech/?configure=1
Then tell me: what is the first thing that stops you from using it for real?
That answer is what I need next.
Thanks for writing this up. Bookmarking it for later.
Appreciate the honesty here, most people only share the wins.
Good point. Did you test that with users before committing to it?
Curious how long it took before you saw the first real results?
This is useful. How are you finding your first users so far?
Really relatable. How much time do you put into this each week?
Appreciate the honesty here, most people only share the wins.
What made you pick this stack over the alternatives?
Good point. Did you test that with users before committing to it?
Appreciate the honesty here, most people only share the wins.
Nice progress. What is the next thing you are focusing on?
Great breakdown. What feedback have you had from early users?
Nice progress. What is the next thing you are focusing on?
Great breakdown. What feedback have you had from early users?
Nice progress. What is the next thing you are focusing on?
When users stop after changing a Block, what are you seeing most often: the workspace failing to match their workflow, the effort of configuring it, or reluctance to replace an existing tool?
I don’t have enough behavior yet to separate those cleanly.
What I can say is that the strongest friction I’ve seen so far happens earlier than replacement: people can understand the idea, but still hesitate over what to start with and what to change first.
So I don’t want to claim yet that existing-tool inertia is the main blocker.
My next step is to make the first real edit easier, then see what stops people after that point. Once more people consistently reach that stage, I should be able to distinguish configuration friction from actual replacement resistance.
Nice progress. What is the next thing you are focusing on?
Great breakdown. What feedback have you had from early users?
Great breakdown. What feedback have you had from early users?
Nice progress. What is the next thing you are focusing on?
Nice progress. What is the next thing you are focusing on?
Product teams don't measure feature usage, so they build features based on hype instead. You got 30 comments because the idea is interesting. Usage barely moved because interest and actual-use diverge hard. If teams had a one-line dashboard showing "feature X opened by Y% of MAU last month", they'd cancel half their features. That gap - between conversation signal and usage signal - is where features live for months on the roadmap. You're measuring the right thing now (changed how they actually work, not how they talk about it).
That’s exactly the distinction I’m trying to preserve now.
Conversation is useful for finding hypotheses, but it’s too easy to promote it into evidence.
The product-side signal I care about is whether someone enters, makes a real edit, and later relies on that workflow again.
If the comments stay high and that behavior stays flat, the product hasn’t earned the claim yet.
Your point about feature-usage measurement is a good reminder that the metric has to belong to the behavior, not the story around it.
Nice progress. What is the next thing you are focusing on?
The next focus is reducing friction before the first real edit.
Two separate people pointed out that I’m asking someone to choose the closest template and then decide what to change before blockmade gives anything back.
I want to make that first path more obvious without changing the actual validation goal.
So the next question is simple: can more people get to one real edit without having to guess what to do first?
Great breakdown. What feedback have you had from early users?
The most useful feedback so far is that people can understand the idea without necessarily knowing what to do first.
The flexibility makes sense conceptually, but that doesn’t automatically make the first step obvious.
So I’m weighing behavior more heavily than compliments: did someone make a real edit, where did they hesitate, and how quickly could they get there?
The early feedback is pushing me more toward removing friction than adding more features.
Ran into the identical mistake on a different channel this week, and the numbers were embarrassing enough to be worth handing over.
For 17 days a brand account replied in big threads where the buyers were. On the best day nine replies sat under threads worth roughly 400,000 views between them, and I logged that as reach. Then I opened the account's own Replies tab and read the view count on each of MY replies instead of on the thread above it. 54 posts and replies, 237 views in total. Median 3. Ten at zero. The two replies under the 106,000 and 42,000 view threads: zero views after a day.
Same structure as yours. Comments belong to whoever felt like typing. Host views belong to the host. Neither one is a measurement of your thing, and both feel like one because they are large and they arrive right after you ship.
On your actual question, one reframe that might save you a cycle: "usage" is also two metrics wearing one word.
Activation is somebody opening the configure link and making one real edit. Retention is somebody coming back on day three without you asking. A post can only ever move activation, and usually it cannot even do that, because the ask has two decisions stacked in front of the value: which template is closest, and which one thing to change. Someone who does not already know your templates stops at the first decision and never reaches the second. Another commenter spotted the same thing independently, which is usually a sign it is real.
The number that is genuinely yours and will not flatter you: of everyone who opens the configure link, how many make one edit, and how many seconds pass before that first edit. Both are yours, both are cheap to instrument, and both move when you change the product rather than when you change the post.
Honest limit: my case is one small account over 17 days, and it cannot tell me which of the causes did the damage. It only proved the number I had been reporting was not mine.
If the entry page is the suspect, nexusbro.com/website-audit-for/saas runs a SaaS specific pass tuned to trial conversion and activation, about 60 seconds, no card and no email capture. It will not tell you whether anyone changed how they work. Your own first edit counter will, and that one is free.
That distinction between activation and retention is useful.
The second independent read on the two-decision ask is especially valuable — that makes it harder to dismiss as a one-off interpretation.
For this phase I’m keeping the immediate test narrow: did someone get in and make a real edit? But time-to-first-edit looks like a useful diagnostic because it can tell me whether the entry path improved without changing the actual goal.
I’d treat an unaided return a few days later as the next layer of evidence once the first step is working reliably.
Appreciate the concrete numbers and the caveat.
Good call separating "the idea starts a conversation" from "someone changes how they work". In my experience those are measured by completely different people: commenters are mostly other builders, and the ones who'd actually switch rarely comment at all.
One thing I'd watch in the answers you get: "what stops you" tends to produce polite, hypothetical reasons (a missing feature, a nicer template). The real blocker for moving a paid workflow is usually switching cost: the data already lives in the old tool, the team is used to it, and it's wired into two other things. If your test can get even one person to move a real workflow and come back on day 7, that one return tells you more than the 30 comments did.
That distinction is really useful.
I agree that comments can overrepresent other builders while the people who would actually switch may never comment at all.
Your point about switching cost also feels more important than a hypothetical missing feature. Data, habits, and existing integrations are much harder barriers than “I wish it had X.”
For this phase I’m keeping the immediate test narrow, but I’m definitely keeping the day-7 return idea as a stronger next-stage signal.
Thanks — this gives me a better way to separate feedback from actual behavior.
Before I click anything, one thing from the post itself: your ask has two decisions in it before blockmade gives anything back. Which template is "the closest", and which "one thing" to change. I'd guess some people stop at the first one, because they'd have to know your templates before they can pick. That's a guess from reading, not a test, so weigh it like one.
Your measuring point landed with me. In this project's whole history, two strangers have gone all the way through my entry page, and one of them was someone I asked.
So a trade, if you want one, in this order: you go first. 30 minutes on my entry page, a five-question quiz for a product I sell. I give you a task, not a request for opinions, and you tell me the first point where you had to guess or stop. Then I do exactly what your post asks on blockmade, closest template, one change, and write down the first thing that stops me, with the time and the exact wording on screen.
No hard feelings if it's not your thing, and no follow-up from me.
That’s a useful observation — especially the point that I’m asking people to make two decisions before blockmade gives anything back.
I’m going to keep this round of validation non-reciprocal so I don’t distort the signal by trading reviews, but the friction you pointed out is exactly the kind of thing I’m trying to catch.
Thanks for spelling it out so clearly.
This resonates a lot — how long did it take before you saw any real signal on it?
The first traffic came fairly quickly, but I wouldn’t count that as a real signal.
The useful signal took longer — when a few people actually moved past looking and started trying to change something themselves.
That gap was the important part for me. It showed that getting attention and getting real usage are two very different problems.
I’m still early enough that I’d call it a signal, not validation yet.