I was too scared to post my app in Facebook groups. It got me 12 signups in 24 hours!

Getting people in is one problem. Getting them to actually move through the first meaningful action is a completely different one.

That drop off after step one is the story. It is not that people were not interested. It is that they did not immediately understand what to do next or why it mattered. That gap between signup and first real value is where most products quietly lose people.

This shows up the same way in other industries too. In home health, for example, agencies adopt new systems all the time, including AI home health software, but if the workflow is not obvious in the first few interactions, usage drops off fast. The data might be there, the functionality might be strong, but if the user cannot quickly connect the steps, they stop.

The fact that you caught this early is the win. Most people would focus on the 12 signups and miss the actual signal.

Your takeaway about onboarding being the product for new users is exactly it. If someone cannot get to their first meaningful outcome quickly, nothing else really matters yet.

The onboarding revelation is the actual story here. 12 signups is a win. 4 who tried it, all stopping at the same step - that's not failure, that's a diagnostic. You now know exactly where the confusion is.

The Facebook thing is real too. Posting from your personal profile feels exposed, but that's also why it converts. People are buying you as much as the product at this stage. The landlord in your hometown who sees your face in the post trusts it more than a faceless SaaS landing page.

Keep sharing the updates, curious to see what the activation rate looks like after you fix the onboarding flow.

Sometimes it’s important to remember that not all users are on platforms like Reddit or Twitter, they’re often on simpler, more traditional channels. I learned this firsthand. I used to post a lot on Twitter, but mostly saw developers engaging with my posts. It generated traffic, but didn’t lead to sign-ups. Then I shifted my approach and started sharing in WhatsApp community groups with help from friends. That’s when I began seeing real sign-ups(not many. just stuck on few).

The key takeaway: it’s not just about reaching more people it’s about reaching the right users.

Huge props for the Facebook post. Those local groups are usually where the real users live.

12 signups are a win, so don't beat yourself up over the drop-off. If people have to do a bunch of chores (like adding properties and tenants) before they actually see a finished bill, they are going to quit every time. It is just too much work for a first visit.

We see this all the time at our studio. Try showing them a "fake" pre-filled property or a sample bill the second they log in. Let them see the value first, then ask them to do the data entry.

1,000 views and a dozen signups in a day are a great start. Just keep making the first 60 seconds/onboarding easier for them.

This is one of the best distribution breakdowns I've seen here. The honesty about the 12 signups → 4 active → 0 retained pipeline is exactly the kind of data most founders hide.

The Facebook groups insight is gold. I've been building an AI skills marketplace and the biggest lesson has been identical: the channels that feel "scary" or "old school" consistently outperform the comfortable ones. Reddit feels safe but the spam filters kill you. Facebook groups feel vulnerable but the trust is already built in.

Your onboarding diagnosis is spot on too. The curse of the builder is that you know the full workflow, so you never experience the "what do I do next?" moment. One thing that worked for me: instead of letting users start from scratch, pre-populate a demo environment so they can see the end state before building their own. It cuts the "time to aha" from minutes to seconds.

The 4 users who stopped at step 1 aren't lost — they're your best feedback loop. If even one of them tells you what they expected to happen after creating a property, that's worth more than 100 new signups.

Overcoming that initial 'cringe' of posting your own work is a massive feat. It’s such a drag to deal with the anxiety, but 12 signups in 24h is a huge win. Congrats!

This is one of the most honest post-launch writeups I've read on here. The gap between signups and actual usage is the realest problem in early SaaS and you diagnosed it exactly right, they created a property and had no idea what to do next because you built it knowing the full workflow.

The Facebook groups insight is underrated too. Most founders dismiss it as "old school" but niche local groups have the exact audience you need and zero competition from other founders pitching there.

One thing that stood out: you said getting signups is not the same as getting users. That's exactly why I built Valify — most validation advice stops at "did people sign up for your waitlist" which is the wrong signal entirely. Real validation is whether someone completes the core action that delivers value.

For Domanage that's clearly "send your first bill." Everything before that is just setup friction.

Good luck with the onboarding fix — would love to hear how the numbers change after.

You just aked a question I ask myself for a long time: Is facebook groups works really for marketing. Thanks for sharing!

For your onboarding issue, try to make things as simple as possible, don't let people think too much, it needs to be very smooth, like 1 or 2 buttons maximum, and they need to feel the "aha" moment as fast as possible

Good luck!

that fear of posting in groups is real. spent weeks avoiding it with my first product too, convinced I would get banned or look spammy. first time I actually did it (a recipe app), had 8 signups same day. still nervous every time but the numbers dont lie

that fear of posting in groups is real. spent weeks avoiding it with my first product too, convinced I would get banned or look spammy. first time I actually did it (a recipe app), had 8 signups same day. still nervous every time but the numbers dont lie

The honesty here is refreshing. Most people would stop at "12 signups in 24 hours!" and call it a win. Digging into the data and realizing only 4 people actually tried the app takes some discipline.

I've run into the exact same onboarding wall with a couple of my apps. One thing that made a big difference was reducing the time to the first "wow" moment. Instead of making people set everything up before they see value, I started showing them what a completed state looks like right away. Even just a sample screen with dummy data so they can feel the product before committing to the setup.

Also, the Facebook groups insight is underrated. I've been hesitant about posting in groups too because it feels like you're one step away from spam. But niche local groups have way more built-in trust than any anonymous platform. The people there actually care about the topic.

How are you thinking about expanding beyond Croatian landlords? The problem feels universal enough that the same approach could work in other local markets.

This is really interesting.

I’ve been thinking about this space while building something myself, and one thing I’ve noticed is that people struggle more with execution than the idea itself.

I’m currently testing a small tool around this—not fully sure if it’s useful yet.

Would you be open to taking a quick look and sharing honest feedback?

This is so relatable. I'm building Pynglo (email tracking dashboard for freelancers) and hit the same exact onboarding wall. People would sign up, connect their Gmail, look at the dashboard and just... leave. The product worked fine - I use it daily - but new users had no idea what to do next.

What fixed it for me was removing the setup entirely. When someone connects Gmail, we just pull their recent sent emails and sort them automatically - who replied, who's ghosting, who needs a nudge. No configuration, no "create your first thing." They land on the dashboard and immediately see "oh shit, 3 clients are ghosting me right now." That's the aha moment and it happens in seconds.

For your case - could you pre-fill a demo property with a fake tenant and lease already attached? Let people click "Generate Bill" on sample data first. That way they see the payoff before you ask them to do the work of entering their own stuff.

Also your Facebook approach is way better than you think. Local Croatian landlord groups? Nobody else is marketing there. Once your onboarding is tighter I'd repost in those same groups with a "you guys gave me feedback and I rebuilt the whole first-run experience" angle. People eat that up.

The deletion request made me laugh btw. I've been there. Don't sweat it - focus on those 4 who created a property and bounced. They were interested enough to try, they just got lost. That's fixable.

Good luck with it man, keep posting these updates.

This is interesting — domain management is one of those problems that doesn’t seem painful until you have 5–10 projects, and then suddenly it becomes real operational overhead.

I’m curious whether you’re seeing more demand from people managing multiple side projects, or from founders trying to standardize things across a team.

It also feels like domain sprawl is getting worse as people validate ideas faster, so tools like this seem increasingly relevant.

the 4 out of 12 who actually tried the app is the most interesting number here honestly. they were interested enough to sign up AND create a property, which means your value prop worked on them. the problem was just that the path to the "aha moment" was too long. one thing that's helped me with onboarding in my own projects is showing users a completed example state before asking them to build from scratch, like a demo property with a tenant and lease already attached so they can see what "done" looks like. removes the blank canvas anxiety. also facebook groups being your best channel tracks, niche local communities have way more trust built in than any anonymous platform. are you planning to keep going deeper in those same groups with helpful content or mostly focusing on the onboarding fix first?