Traffic and clicks are not the same as real users
Two people spent several months building a SaaS product. Their plan was to find an interesting problem area, talk to people, check whether the problem was worth solving, and use their product and engineering experience to build a solution. Both came from work, with long experience building technology, working with stakeholders, managing projects, and shipping products.
Startup work turned out to be very different from building products inside larger companies. They built the platform, made it , offered it for free, connected it with AI tools, created s, launched on , ran Reddit ads, worked on , kept refining the website, and rewrote the messaging many times. They also spent a lot of time trying to understand who actually has the problem and how to reach those people.
After all that, the product has only 2 users. The confusing part is that ads get clicks and the product seems to get some traffic and , but those signals are not turning into more users.
Key points
- A free SaaS product built over several months has only 2 users.
- product experience did not translate directly into startup growth.
- The team tried , Reddit ads, s, , website changes, and repeated messaging changes.
- Ads produced clicks, and there were signs of traffic and .
- Clicks and visits need to be tested against actual signups and product use.