The moment I realized I was building in the dark

For months, I kept shipping features, fixing bugs, and polishing pages, but I wasn’t really "seeing" anything.

DocBeacon (https://docbeacon) started as a simple idea: a tool for secure document sharing and tracking. I wanted to help founders, sales teams, and anyone sending important docs know what happens after they hit send.

But after launch, I fell into the same trap many builders do, I was building in the dark.

Every new feature felt "useful" in theory, but I had no real sense of whether users wanted it, noticed it, or even understood it. I was looking at analytics, not people.

The wake-up moment came one afternoon when I realized I couldn’t name three people who had actually used DocBeacon and told me what worked or didn’t. I knew every line of code, but not a single story of use.

That’s when I stopped asking "what should I build next" and started asking "who am I really building for".

Instead of adding more buttons, I began reaching out.
I emailed a few early users, read through their messages, and tried to understand their day-to-day. Most didn’t care about "document analytics". They cared about whether their investors opened their deck, or if their client really read the proposal before a meeting.

That changed everything.

Now, every update starts from one question: "Did this help someone do their job better?"

It’s still slow. The traffic is small. But at least now the direction feels clear.

If you’re building your product and not talking to your users, you might be coding with the lights off too.