I’m building something people might love but never use.
I’ve been building Flouie, a place where you can capture your thoughts and things happening in your life, and eventually discover patterns and insights you might not notice yourself.
The product is coming together.
But there’s a problem I can’t solve just by adding another feature.
Will people actually come back?
Someone might use Flouie today and genuinely enjoy its immediate features.
But will they open it tomorrow?
Will they remember it next week when they have something they want to capture or jot down?
Will it become a natural part of their life, or slowly become another app they forget about?
That’s what I’m trying to understand now.
Because I don’t want to build something people say is “cool” and then never open again.
I want to understand what actually makes a product become a habit.
So I’m curious:
What apps have you used consistently for months or years?
What made you keep coming back?
And have you ever used a product you genuinely liked, but eventually stopped using? What made you stop?
I’m much more interested in the uncomfortable answers as of now!
Looking at the data, the people who actually hit 7+ entries were almost 100% the ones who already had messy Apple Notes or Notion dumps. The people trying to build a brand new habit bounced almost immediately after day one.
You are totally right that adding streaks or more reminder mechanics right now would just mask the real problem.I am going to split those two cohorts in onboarding right away and focus purely on the return trigger for the existing note takers instead of trying to be everything for everyone.
Really appreciate you taking the time to call this out, super helpful.
Really good question. Right now, unprompted returns are 100% driven by overwhelm.
Most people in their first session just write one quick brain dump or test importing some notes. They don't stick around long. But a few days later when their mind starts racing again, they remember having a quiet place to unload and open it back up.
So it’s definitely not a daily habit yet, it’s event-driven. The pattern discovery only kicks in after they’ve dumped enough thoughts for the system to say “hey, you keep doing X every time Y happens.” Once they see that, they get curious.
What did you find in your founder exercise? Would love to hear what kind of loops you’ve seen work.
You’re completely right.
That’s the main reason I don’t want to push daily streaks or reminders. Whenever an app tells people to write every single day, most quit within a month because missing a couple of days just makes them feel guilty.
My goal with Flouie is specifically for that messy moment you mentioned, when you have an argument, can’t sleep, or your head is spinning, and you just want to get it out of your system.
The issue with Apple Notes is that once you type something out in the heat of the moment, you basically never open that note again. It just sits there. Flouie is meant to let you dump those thoughts just as easily, but then help you notice if the same problems or themes keep coming up over time.
I’m going to take your advice and talk to people who already use Notes this way. Thanks for pointing this out, it’s really helpful.
100%. The moment an app shows a broken streak, you feel guilty about it.
Flouie doesn’t have streaks or daily checklists. It’s built around "scenes" whenever you just wanna dump your thoughts (they don't have to be structured or anything)
If you disappear for two weeks and come back with just some random brain dump, the app doesn't ask where you were. It just takes that note, compares it with your older notes (if there are enough of them), and shows you what changed. Zero catch-up required.
But yes you do need to write or speak sometimes, cause it's not a tool that will read your mind and tell patterns from your thoughts ;) that said, you can take long gaps and breaks, and it won't matter.
Really good point. If an app needs you to constantly remember it exists, you eventually just stop caring.
I’d rather Flouie just sit in the background and only ping you when it actually connects the dots on something you wrote. Less noise, more useful when it does reach out.
100%. Nice to have apps get bookmarked and never opened again.
That's why I'm mostly focusing on people who already write down their thoughts when they feel overwhelmed, but get nothing out of it.1
If the habit of writing when stressed already exists, Flouie just makes that existing loop actually useful instead of a graveyard of thoughts.
Retention and habit formation are the hardest parts of building software. Even a great product gets abandoned if it doesn't solve an urgent daily loop. For me, apps that stick long-term are those deeply integrated into an existing workflow—like code editors or project management tools—where stopping means breaking daily productivity. If an app relies purely on conscious effort to open it, usage usually drops off.
That’s actually why I’ve started shifting focus away from "teach people to journal" and toward people who already do it.
If someone is already dumping thoughts into Apple Notes, Notion, or a physical notebook every night, the habit is already there. The problem they have is that their notes just sit in a graveyard. For them, Flouie isn't a new daily chore they have to force themselves to do- it's an upgrade to an existing routine because it actually uses what they're already writing.
Still, consumer habit loops are definitely a different beast compared to B2B tools where your job forces you to open them. Appreciate the perspective!
Already done man! You can import messy notes and journals from multiple apps in multiple formats using a built in tool:)
Most people drop off journaling because staring at a blank page feels tiring.
The angle I'm betting on with Flouie is that you don't come back to write an essay, you come back to see what the app connected about your past few days (muktiple features are targeting long term value). If you logged feeling completely drained on Tuesday, Flouie flags that it’s the third Tuesday in a row this happened after a specific trigger.
So the trigger isn't "time to write", it's curiosity about what it noticed about you. Plus, keeping the daily input down to like 30 seconds (a single brain dump) so there's zero friction.
Still testing this with early users to see if that's enough to build the habit, but curious what your experience has been with apps that actually got you to stick around (especially notes and journalling apps).
Actually, that's something I've been thinking about a lot too. I've been using this app for around two months, and I'm still excited to check my discoveries and patterns every day. That said, because it's my own product, I'm obviously a bit biased, and since it's only been a short time since the launch, it's too early to draw any conclusions.
you can reach out to me on meharbhamrah attherate gmaildotcom (it won't let me type the mail :)
Thanks! I’ve just sent it over.
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts whenever you have a chance.
That’s a fair point. I don’t think it necessarily needs to be daily.
What I care about more is whether people naturally come back when they have a thought worth capturing, rather than having to remind themselves to use it.
There’s also some immediate value when you capture a thought, since Flouie gives you relevant facts and context around that entry right away. So there’s a reason to open it beyond just "keeping a journal."