Why good products are often hard to understand at first glance
I’ve been noticing something while checking out a lot of Indie Hacker products lately.
Most of them are actually solid products, but they’re hard to understand in the first few seconds.
When I land on a new product page, my brain immediately tries to figure out what it is, who it’s for, what problem it solves, and why I should care right now. If I can’t get those answers quickly, I usually leave, even though the product itself might be good.
I don’t think this is a product quality issue. It feels more like a clarity issue. When you’re building something for months, it’s really hard to explain it simply to someone seeing it for the first time.
Curious to hear from other founders here. What part of explaining your product do you struggle with the most?
I struggle most to explain that my product is not a months effort but rather years. We have a lot of screenshots and a density of features now on the landing page but I'm guessing Uclusion will still take more than a few seconds to figure out.
My theory is that the trust to spend more than a few seconds figuring out a product has been sucked out of the room by people launching after months.
Totally get that. The longer a product evolves, the harder it is to explain quickly. Most users don’t need the full story, just a simple reason to trust it. I’ve been working with founders on simplifying complex products into short explainers that help people stick around longer. Happy to check it out if that helps.
Disrael, Amazing thoughts! Finding early users and monitoring relevant conversations can definitely be a challenge.
I built a Chrome extension called PulseOfReddit that helps with exactly this - it tracks Reddit keywords and alerts you when relevant discussions pop up. It's helped me catch early conversations and validate ideas faster. Offering free access for the first 10 users if you want to try it out.
Website:
pulseofredditcom
Great insights in your post!
I built a Chrome extension called PulseOfReddit that helps with exactly this - it tracks Reddit keywords and alerts you when relevant discussions pop up. It's helped me catch early conversations and validate ideas faster. Offering free access for the first 10 users if you want to try it out.
Website:
pulseofredditcom