A stranger used my product today and didn't sign up. I'm counting it as progress.
A few weeks ago, I would've looked at today's numbers and called them a failure.
A handful of visitors.
No new accounts.
No revenue.
But something different happened.
Someone I didn't know found one of my posts, opened Ashive, went through the onboarding, hit the signup wall, and then took the time to tell me exactly where they got stuck.
No signup.
No payment.
Just feedback.
The interesting part is that the feedback immediately changed how I'm thinking about the product.
Before this, every opinion about Ashive came from me, friends, or people I already knew.
This was the first time a stranger interacted with it and showed me the gap between what I intended and what they experienced.
It made me realize something:
As founders, we often treat signups as the only signal that matters.
But before signups come understanding.
And before understanding comes observation.
Today I learned more from one person getting stuck than I did from thousands of content views.
Curious how other founders think about this.
At what point do you start counting feedback itself as progress?
The framing shift from "signups" to "understanding" is the right one, especially early. A signup from someone who doesn't understand what they're using is actually worse than a non-signup with a clear explanation of where they got stuck, the first one gives you a false positive, the second one gives you a map. Sounds like you got the more valuable outcome today.
The "before signups come understanding, before understanding comes observation" line is the whole post. Most founders treat feedback as a worse version of signups, when its actually the earlier version of them - just denominated in a currency we havent learned to value yet.
Im in the exact same spot rn with my own thing - low signups, zero paid trials, but 3-4 strangers have taken the time to tell me where they got confused. A month ago id have called that a failure. Now i realise its the only signal that compounds. A signup tells u someone clicked. A stranger writing 5 sentences abt where they got stuck tells u why everyone else didnt.
To ur question - imo feedback counts as progress the moment u stop being defensive about it. Thats the actual leading indicator, not the count of comments 🙌
You really should investigate why they didn't sign up
Yeah, that's fair.
I was so focused on the fact that someone actually used it that I forgot to ask why they left. Looking back, that's probably the more valuable thing to ask.
Thanks for your reply
I'd rather have one stranger explain why they didn't sign up than five friends tell me the product looks great. Honest friction is usually more valuable than polite encouragement.
this!
I agree,
The onboarding feedback I got yesterday was probably more useful than weeks of people telling me the idea sounded good.
I've readed this story and it looks good
can you add it to https://dev.us.kg/t/stories
Thanks, man.
Wasn't expecting anyone to find the story useful, I'll check the website later