I pivoted Veravo after realizing I kept building for users I didn’t understand
I recently launched Veravo as a compliance-monitoring tool for indie developers.
The idea looked reasonable on paper. I researched the market, found problems, studied competitors, and built something that I thought developers needed.
But I eventually realized that I was repeating the same mistake I had made with several previous products:
I was building for someone I was pretending to understand.
I kept finding problems through web research and then trying to become the target user. I would tell myself, “I can imagine having this problem,” even when I had never genuinely experienced it.
Unsurprisingly, those products did not work.
Then I came across a comment on Reddit with a simple message: build something for yourself, then see whether it helps others.
I had heard that advice before, but I had never truly followed it.
So I decided to pivot Veravo.
I often struggle to make decisions that feel clear and honest. I may make an important commitment, but weeks later I forget exactly why I made it, what facts I considered, or whether I am still following it.
That is the problem I am now building Veravo to solve.
Veravo helps you:
think through an important decision;
record the facts, pressures, assumptions, and trade-offs behind it;
preserve what you actually decided at that moment;
set a future review date;
revisit the decision without silently rewriting your original reasoning.
There is deliberately no AI reading or interpreting your private entries. I do not want an AI telling users what they should do with their lives.
Decision records are end-to-end encrypted, so even I cannot read what users store in their vaults.
I still do not know whether people will pay for software like this.
Why would someone pay for a product that records decisions, preserves their reasoning, schedules reviews, sends reminders, and keeps everything private?
That is what I now need to discover.
But this is the first product I have built that I personally need. Even if it never becomes a large business, I believe it can help me make better decisions and remain honest about the commitments I make.
Veravo has a generous free tier, and I would really value feedback from people who struggle with second-guessing, forgotten commitments, or unclear decisions.
You can try it at veravo.tech.
This is not only a product pivot for me. It is also a change in how I want to build products: experience the problem first, build something useful for myself, and earn the right to believe it may help somebody else.
