I tried to rethink file sharing around privacy. Here's what I built.
After 2 years of building, I finally launched OWL Transfer two weeks ago.
Like many founders, I thought launching would be the hard part.
It wasn't.
Getting people to discover your product is much harder.
OWL Transfer is a secure file transfer platform, but I didn't want to build "another WeTransfer."
From the beginning, my goal was to solve two problems that I felt existing services don't fully address:
- Giving senders real control over their documents.
I built OneTimeView, a feature that lets recipients view a file only once in their browser. They can't download it, copy its contents, and in most desktop environments, screenshots and screen recording are blocked as well.
It's designed for situations where you need someone to read a document without letting it spread everywhere afterwards.
- Real end-to-end privacy.
Many file transfer services encrypt files, but they also keep the keys needed to decrypt them.
I chose a different approach.
OWL Transfer uses PGP encryption with a public/private key pair. Users can either let us securely store their private key for convenience or keep it themselves. If they choose the second option, they have the proof that OWL Transfer cannot decrypt their files.
The long-term vision is much bigger than today's product. I want OWL Transfer to become a complete file-sharing ecosystem with desktop and mobile apps, email integrations, APIs, and everything users expect from modern file transfer services—but with security and privacy as first-class features rather than optional add-ons.
Now comes the difficult part: finding users.
The product has only been live for about two weeks, and I'm learning that building the product was only half of the journey.
For those of you who have launched developer tools or SaaS products:
What was the single thing that helped you get your first 100–1,000 real users?
I'd love to hear your experiences.
One thing I kept thinking about is that people rarely go looking for a "more private file transfer."
They usually reach for one after they've had a moment where they wished they hadn't lost control of a file. The challenge may be less about teaching people your security model and more about making those moments immediately recognizable. If users can instantly think, "This is exactly when I'd use OWL Transfer," the product becomes much easier to remember and recommend.