I spent weeks building a feature that I just removed from my app
This was a real life lesson.
Ironically, the feature was validated. Some apps make great MRR just on that feature.
But it wasn't what my app was originally supposed to be. And it was only deterring me from creating real results for my users.
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Creating real results. Good for you. People > MRR. Nice to hear. ;-)
Thank you :) It was definitely difficult but after talking to many people who grew their following, they all grew without scheduling. I had lost sight of the original idea because I was trying to follow the market! But the market is wrong.
Still painful though losing so much work!
+1 Twitter automation is not necessary - and it's also something that's already baked into the native (web) UI (at least, scheduling tweets).
Double down on what works!
Thank you so much, Jordan! This is amazing to hear coming from you!
In college I took a poetry class to meet my general education requirements. My biggest takeaway was the concept of "killing my darlings" - removing really good sections to improve the rest of my poem. I think of it all the time while building https://www.flowphantom.com/, who knew poetry could help me with saas 😂.
I think of studying art in the same way. Reduction to shapes. Never finished, only abandoned. Etc.
If not scheduling, then what?
What would move the needle that's best facilitated by CrowdFox?
I used to think scheduling is asinine, but the market really wants scheduling.
As with stocks and crypto, in SaaS the market is never wrong.
In this case, I would say the market is wrong. Because the majority of the market has around <1,500 or even less followers. So if they have a small Twitter account, they shouldn’t be determining what features will help them grow a Twitter account to a large account.
That's good to know, but they're the customers, I wouldn't argue with customers.
And my question was still unanswered, but that's fine...
I see that you run Zlappo so no I probably won’t be giving away feature ideas on IH until I implement them myself. I’ve got to keep a little edge in such a saturated market ;)
Thanks for sharing! I hope this is a nice reminder for others to consider what they might be able to trim from their products. (I'm sure my app has a few.)
Always best to double-down on what's working, especially in the early stages
That was a good call. Build what will move the needle, not what your competitors are doing.
Making a parallel here: when I had my product, I built it for a long time before talking to my ideal customers. My product was so bloated and no one was using the features I created (competitors have features x, y, z. I need to add them on mine).
In the end, I took some features down and decided to build things only when customers requested.
✂️
Ahahah really?
I think that was the right more, be focused 100% on your value proposition and see if you can make a living out-of-it. You'll add additional features afterward!
Congrats on the speed move, I guess that was not an easy one!
It was not an easy one 😂 But talking to other big accounts, they never used scheduling to grow either. It felt the most authentic