Talk to your users or die
Happy Monday, Indie Hackers! I’m Kate, building migroot.io — a tracker that helps people collect the right documents to relocate smoothly.
Thought I was lightning fast on the court—until I saw the video my kid took. 😅
Same with product building.
You think your UX is smooth, your value is clear, your flow is intuitive...
Then you talk to users — and realize they’re totally missing the point.
Last week I did a bunch of interviews and learned that our free version just isn’t landing.
People didn’t understand what it was for or how it helps.
The problem wasn’t the product — it was the onboarding and messaging. We were hiding the value behind too many steps and assumptions.
Made me realize:
1/ If users don’t get the value in the first few minutes, they bounce.
2/ It’s not their fault. It’s ours.
3/ And no, analytics won’t tell you why.
Y Combinator is right: talk to your users.
What’s helped you show the core value of your product early on?
Especially if you’re running a freemium model?
yes i want talk to users.
Couldn't agree more with you. Im working on a messaging app myself (althogh it's in dev phase), I upholdthis quote from Steve Jobs when working on my platform: "Simple can be harder than complex" Every single thing whether it's your company's name, your theme, and even the minor things need to scream what the product does.
The core values of my platform was clear from the beginning that my messaging app has to be less cluttered, cleaner, more focused on the core purpose (messaging), simpler, and most importantly, more privacy centric. The UIs of my direct competitors (WhatsApp and Telegram) are although easy to navigate, but still I've noticed that lots of people I interact withDO NOT know about certain features the apps contain just because they're too deep inside the UIs. That's a strong point for me, probably would also give you an idea about 'clear message.'