The Color Palette Lab
Not another random palette generator.
I shipped two different offers this year, and with both I put out feelers to gather beta testers and early feedback. Both got a huge response and interest, so I'm thinking — excellent!!
And honestly, it has been going pretty well. Just not in the way I expected. People have made purchases on each offering, so it's landing on some level clearly.
However, I'm operating at maybe 50% follow-through from volunteers. And I get it, life happens. I'm an entrepreneur and a homeschooling mom. I should know better than anyone that life is FULL.
I'm trying not to take it too personally, but it's been genuinely surprising. I did not expect getting feedback to be this challenging.
One of these offers really requires some thinking brain. The other (The Color Palette Lab) is so intuitive it shouldn't take more than a few minutes of play time.
Both got ghosted at roughly the same rate.
Is this just... the norm? What gives?
I’m launching my design tool on DevHunt this week, and prepping for it forced me to finally change things I’d been avoiding. Not big features, but little UI decisions I was kind of scared to touch.
None of it was broken, but it wasn’t clean.
So here’s what I changed:
1. I reduced explanatory copy.
I kept wanting to explain how the tool works. But every time I watched someone use it, they didn’t read, so I made some micro UI adjustments instead.
2. I accepted that not everything was a need.
I had microcopy I thought was useful when I first built but really was doing nothing for anyone.
3. I removed friction I thought was harmless.
Small delays like a minor download hesitation. Tiny confusion around where favorites lived. Individually small for sure... but together? Friction.
The biggest shift wasn’t adding anything. It was trusting the product enough to get out of its way.
It’s cleaner now. Faster! I'm happy.
I launched The Color Palette Lab recently. I’ve worked in marketing for years, so I expected this to mostly be a marketing challenge.
Instead, I’m learning patience.
early feedback > clever positioning
function > polish
iteration > perfection
Building a tool is very different from marketing services. It forces you to slow down and listen.
Still refining because I can't seem to stop. lol
Happy to share specifics if anyone’s curious.
https://bonniesorsby.com/color-palette-builder/
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