I stopped asking "How do I get users?" and started asking this instead.
When I first started building ReadRiff, I thought my biggest challenge would be getting users.
I was wrong.
The harder question turned out to be:
"Why should anyone come back after their first visit?"
With AI making it easier than ever to create content, publishing articles isn't difficult anymore.
Earning someone's trust is.
That realization changed the way I'm building ReadRiff.
Instead of chasing page views or publishing every day, I'm focusing on creating a platform where every article has to answer one simple question:
"Is this genuinely worth a reader's time?"
It's slower.
Sometimes frustrating.
But I think long-term trust is a better strategy than short-term traffic.
ReadRiff is still in development, and I'm building it around thoughtful articles, practical insights, and features like audio playback, offline reading, reading queues, and community-driven topic suggestions.
Right now, I'm looking for people who genuinely enjoy learning and are willing to help shape the platform through feedback before launch.
If that sounds like you, I'd love for you to check it out:
🌐 Website: https://readriff.com
🚀 Product Hunt: https://www.producthunt.com/products/readriff
📩 Feedback & ideas: [email protected]
One question for fellow founders:
What's one decision you made that slowed your growth in the short term but made your product better in the long run?
I'd love to learn from your experiences.
This lands. "How do I get users" assumes the product is the constant and the users are the variable.
The version I got stuck on is worse: I built a two-sided marketplace, so "how do I get users" is actually two questions that block each other. Nobody's answer to "how do I get users" has ever helped me, because the real question turned out to be "who goes first, and what does it cost me to make that happen."
What was the question you switched to?
Audio, offline reading, and queues are retention features, but they can blur whether trust comes from curation or convenience. I'd launch with one metric: the percentage of first-time readers who save or finish a second article within seven days. If that doesn't move, more publishing cadence won't fix the trust loop.
The shift from acquisition to retention is the interesting one. I'd keep validating whether readers are returning because the content is high quality, or because ReadRiff becomes the place they trust to filter what's actually worth their attention. Those create very different products.