My app isn't perfect — and the best thing I did was admit it out loud

Building Local Waifu (on-device AI companion for macOS) taught me something fast: you can't please everyone, and pretending otherwise just slows you down.

I know the app isn't perfect. I know I won't build the exact thing every single user wants. For a while that bugged me. Then I flipped it — instead of guessing what people think, I just started asking.

So I set up a Discord. Nothing fancy. If someone has a cool idea, a feature they wish existed, or something that annoys them, they can just message me there directly. No feedback form, no roadmap voting tool, no process. Just a place where I actually hear what users think.

It's wild how much clearer the direction gets when you stop assuming and start listening. Half the stuff I thought mattered, nobody mentioned. And some of the best ideas in the app now came straight from someone dropping a message in that server.

If you're building solo: open a channel where people can reach you, and actually read it. Cheapest product research there is.