Is Your App a Painkiller or a Vitamin? Lessons From a Painkiller

Last year, I wasted €1k+ buying travel and rental insurance I already had through my credit cards. Funny enough, that was not painful enough… I had to see a friend going through the same mental gymnastics to decide to build Norte. An AI-powered wallet that reveals your hidden protections before you buy more.

I shipped, soft-launched, and… it actually worked.

Users said “This is super useful” and “I wish I had this before my trip.” Some users are even making coverage decisions or claims after using the platform.

But after about 70 users, growth flattened.

So I sat down and wrote about my journey. It helped me realize: People only think about coverage at trigger moments: when renting a car, booking a trip, or filing a claim.

This means, I built a painkiller, but I’d been marketing it like a vitamin.

So I put a plan in place for the next few weeks:

• Focus only on trigger moments (rental cars, travel, big purchases)
• Main channels: Google Search + Reddit + SEO (“Do I need rental insurance with Amex?”)
• Let data, not ego, show which trigger truly converts before a hard launch

Takeaway (and why I wrote this post): even useful tools fail when they show up at the wrong moment.

If you’ve built something that only becomes urgent at specific times, how did you reach those users?

Feel free to check Norte: https://norteapp.io