Watching Someone Use Your Product for the First Time

Getting someone to use your product the way you prioritize is just so damn hard.

It’s one thing for you, as the builder, to use the product yourself, feel good about it, and convince yourself it all makes sense. But as soon as the product hits reality, everything changes. Real people use it in unexpected ways. There are always surprises.

That’s why it’s so important to watch somebody else use your product for the first time. Sit with them, stay quiet, and just observe what they do, where they get stuck, what they ignore, and what they naturally gravitate toward.

Then take that experience back to yourself.

That feedback loop—seeing your product through someone else’s eyes, then reflecting on it—is incredibly powerful. I think that’s great, and honestly, probably essential if you want your priorities to actually match how people use what you’re building.