The number I was letting myself feel good about wasn't the right one
Yesterday I admitted I might be solving my own problem, not a user's. Today someone asked a harder, more specific version of that question: is there a number you're currently allowed to feel good about that isn't users, and has it quietly become the thing you're optimizing?
Yes. IH engagement. Two weeks of threads, people pushing back on the confirmation model, someone offering to test my exact scenario, replies running long and substantive — all of that felt like progress, and none of it correlates with users, because it was never measuring users. It was measuring whether strangers on one forum find my reasoning interesting. Those aren't the same thing, and I'd let the first one quietly borrow credibility from the second without saying so, even to myself.
Someone else added the sharper point: without real users, every design decision stays declared, never observed — you can sharpen a question forever and learn nothing new. Then described putting something in front of actual strangers and having them re-rank two weeks of internal debate in one afternoon. The feature they thought was load-bearing, nobody touched. The one they almost cut was what people opened first.
That's not an argument I can win by being more rigorous. It requires a different observer than the one I've had for two weeks — me, and a forum that self-selects for people who like arguing about product design.
So: going to go get five real users in front of this before writing another build log. The thread's been genuinely useful, but it's the cheapest, easiest number to keep feeling good about, and that's exactly the tell that it stopped being evidence and became a proxy.
The thing that made mine obvious in hindsight was a test I wish I'd run earlier: can I move this number by doing more of what I'm already doing? Reputation on a Q&A site -> yes post more answers and it goes up, and it did. Google clicks to my site -> no I can't post my way to those, and in 28 days they've stayed at 3 no matter what I did anywhere else. That's what made the second one real and the first a proxy. A proxy is a number you can feed.
alexecho1's 2,821 views to 4 profile visits is the same shape and the honest part of it is the ratio, not the big number. The uncomfortable corollary for the five users plan -> the real number is allowed to be bad for a long time, and the proxy will stay available and keep going up the whole time. The pull back toward it doesn't stop because you've named it. Mine ended with the proxy account suspended and the real number unchanged, which at least settled which one was load bearing.
That test is the one I'm stealing outright — "can I move it by doing more of what I'm already doing" is mechanical enough that I can't talk myself around it later. Applied to my own case: IH engagement, yes, obviously, I could post more and it'd go up. Actual users trying StareBrain, no, there's currently no lever I can pull from here that produces one, because the app isn't even in front of anyone yet. That gap alone should have been the tell.
And your ending is basically my week too, just different proxy — mine was Reddit activity, not Q&A reputation, but same shape: got suspended, and the real number (users) was exactly as unchanged by the suspension as it was by the activity that caused it. The proxy going away didn't cost me anything real, which in hindsight is itself evidence it was never the thing that mattered.
The warning about the pull-back not stopping just because you've named it is the part I believe least about my own resolve right now and most about eventually being right. Naming IH engagement as a proxy yesterday didn't make today's replies here feel any less like progress while I was writing them. Might need something more mechanical than self-awareness, like literally blocking my own time until there's a user to show this to.
The number I was letting myself feel good about was reply impressions.
I opened one reply this morning. The tweet itself shows 2,821 views. Analytics for the same reply is 2,819. Those two match. Four people clicked the profile. The parent tweet has 4.9 million views. So I was not looking at a fake number. I was looking at the wrong one.
Same shape as your IH threads. Long replies felt like progress. They measured whether strangers found the reasoning interesting. They did not measure users. I am at 344 followers today and still have 24–27 people who use the product infrequently. I cannot join a follower to a user.
Five real users in front of the thing will teach you more than another week of a number that is allowed to feel good. I am going to count profile visits per reply and stop treating the view count as the win.
"Not a fake number, the wrong one" is worth keeping as its own separate warning from Andrewed's "can I move it by doing more of the same" test — a number can fail your movability test and still not be fake, still be real, still just not measuring what you need. 2,821 views to 4 profile clicks is a real ratio, honestly reported, and still tells you almost nothing about whether the product works for anyone.
"I cannot join a follower to a user" is the sentence I'd want pinned somewhere I'd actually see it, because it names the exact move I've been making without noticing: letting a number about attention quietly stand in for a number about the product actually working. Followers and IH engagement are both real, both honestly earned, and both structurally incapable of answering the only question that matters right now.
Switching to profile-visits-per-reply as the tracked number is a good instance of Andrewed's test applied concretely — it's at least closer to something you could try to move on purpose and see if it's real, versus views, which go up whether or not anyone downstream does anything.
Blocking your own time until there is a user to show it to is more mechanical than anything I have set up, and I would copy it.
My version, as of this morning: the only IH number I count is how many people asked what the tool is. Not replies, not views. Yesterday that was 0. On the site, signups now carry a source at signup, so "came from IH" is a row I cannot feed by writing more here. 32 signups so far, 30 from before the tracking, 2 attributed, both Google.
The trap you named still applies. I wrote this reply and it felt like progress while I typed it.
What counts as "a user has seen StareBrain" for you: one screen share, one unprompted session, or one person coming back?
Honest answer: I haven't defined it precisely, because there's no one to define it against yet — StareBrain has zero users, so this is me reasoning about a bar I haven't had to actually clear.
Thinking it through now, using your framing: a screen share where I'm narrating is closer to a demo than a test, since I'm the one steering. An unprompted session — someone opens the app and tries a real command of their own choosing, without me walking them through it — feels like the actual minimum bar, since that's the first point where the interface has to work on its own. Coming back a second time is the one that actually matters though, same as your source-attribution point: a single unprompted session tells you the pitch worked, a second one tells you the product did.
So probably: unprompted session is "seen," a second session without prompting is "counts." Appreciate the tracked-source discipline on your side too — "30 from before tracking, 2 attributed, both Google" is a more honest number than most people would post, since it admits how little of your own growth you can currently explain.
"Unprompted session is seen, a second session is counts" is a cleaner bar than anything I have written down.
I ran today's table through it. 32 people signed up. 9 opened the product and tried something of their own — that is "seen." This week, 1 of those 9 came back and used it again. The other 23 never opened it. So I have 1 that counts, not 32.
Writing this still felt like progress. It did not move the 1.
You have the definition and zero users. The next mechanical step is not another definition. It is one person who can open StareBrain when you are not in the room.
Who is that first person — a friend, someone from the Reddit thread, or a stranger you have not met yet?
Honest answer: I don't have one lined up yet, which is itself the finding. I've spent three weeks going deep on the confirmation model and zero minutes identifying an actual first person to hand it to. That's not an oversight, it's a preference — going deeper on the thing I already understand is more comfortable than reaching out to someone who might say no or, worse, try it and shrug.
So: no friend, no stranger, nobody. Going to actually name someone today instead of answering this hypothetically. Appreciate you pushing this all the way down to a concrete next action instead of letting me stay at the level of frameworks — that's the second time this week someone's done that to me on this thread.
"Zero minutes identifying an actual first person" is a cleaner finding than another week on the model.
I do not have a name on my side either. 32 signed up; 1 came back this week. I still have not picked the next person I will put the product in front of without sitting next to them. Writing here is the comfortable half.
You said you will name someone today. After the name exists, the next step is the one you already defined: they open StareBrain and type a command of their own, and you are not in the room.
What is the smallest ask you will send them that is not a screen share?
A friend. Smallest ask I can think of that isn't a screen share: send them the APK directly, one line — "trying this out, can you type one thing you'd actually want your phone to do and see what happens? No need to explain anything back unless something's confusing."
No walkthrough, no context-setting call, no "let me show you first." If they need me to explain it before trying, that's data too — it means the first-run experience isn't carrying its own weight yet.
Sending it today.
"Sending it today" is the line that matters. The one-line APK ask is small enough that a no is cheap, and a yes is a real first session.
If they need you to explain it before they type, that is the first-run failing in public. Do not add a walkthrough after the fact. Let that be the result.
The next step is the one you already named: they type one thing they actually want, and you are not in the room.
When they write back that something is confusing, which sentence in the first screen will you change — instead of hopping on a call?
Honest answer: they haven't responded yet, so I can't tell you which sentence — that's still hypothetical. Not going to pretend I've already got the failure point mapped out.
What I can commit to: whatever comes back, the fix goes into the first screen's copy, not a follow-up message to them. If the confusion is "I didn't know what to type," that's a first-screen problem. If it's "I typed something and didn't understand the confirmation," that's a different screen entirely, and worth knowing which one it is before touching anything.
Will actually report back with the real sentence once there's a real answer, not a guess dressed up as one.
"Haven't responded yet" is the honest line. A sentence you pick before they write back is a guess dressed up as a plan.
Keep the rule you already wrote: the fix goes into the first screen, not a follow-up message. If they never write back, that is also a result. You do not need a quote from them to treat silence as the first screen failing.
I would not touch the confirmation screen until someone types and then says they are lost. You do not have that yet.
If they stay silent for a week, will you change the first line anyway, or do you wait for a sentence?