It has been 3 days since I launched Crowdwide, and even though the platform is still very small, I’ve already learned something I didn't really expect:
Building a feature is sometimes easier than getting users to actually use it.
A little progress update
Here are the current numbers:
- 6 members
- 13 posts shared
- 3 communities
These numbers are obviously tiny compared to established platforms, but for me, these first users are valuable because I can actually observe how people interact with something I built.
And that's where I noticed this problem.
I've experienced this before
Before Crowdwide, I built Rizzzler, a link-in-bio platform.
You can create your own page for free, without ads or promotional requirements. One of the features I added was the ability to add custom music to your page.
I documented the feature and even shared my own page as an example because I thought it looked pretty cool.
There are currently 10+ users, but only 2 of them are using the custom music feature.
Everyone else mostly uses the normal built-in music.
My first reaction was basically:
"Why isn't anyone using this? I literally built it for you." 😂
Then Crowdwide started teaching me the same lesson.
Where do these feature ideas even come from?
A lot of the features I build aren't completely random.
I get ideas from other products I use, problems I personally experience, and things I think could work differently in my own projects.
For example, the community map in Crowdwide was inspired by Obsidian.
I liked the idea of visually seeing connections and information instead of everything being presented as a simple list.
So I thought:
"What if communities could have their own locations and we could see communities from around the world on a map?" 🌍
That's how the idea for the Crowdwide community map started.
It's not a direct copy of Obsidian's feature. I simply took an idea I found interesting and adapted the concept to a completely different use case.
And currently, the map has basically one resident:
My own community. 😂
So much for seeing the whole world.
Crowdwide has a lot of features nobody uses
I've added quite a few things:
- Hashtags for posts, articles and polls
- Posting directly as a community
- Scheduled posts
- Quests
- Co-authoring
- Recaps
- Community locations on a world map
- And several other smaller features
For example, hashtags can help organize content and make related content easier to discover.
But most people simply write their content and post it without using them.
The same thing happens with community posting. I wanted people to be able to post as their community, rather than always posting from their personal account.
I've even explained some of these features directly to users and friends.
Still... they don't use them.
Maybe "users are lazy" isn't the answer
It's very easy as a developer to think:
"I built it. It's documented. I even explained it. Why isn't anyone using it?"
But maybe that's the wrong way to think about it.
The better question might be:
"Did I make this feature easy enough to discover and understand?"
A user doesn't know what I was thinking when I designed a feature.
They don't know why I built it.
They don't automatically know what problem it solves.
And they definitely don't want to study documentation every time they want to try something new. 😅
Building the feature isn't the end
As developers, we often think:
Idea → Code → Test → Done
But from the user's perspective, there are several more steps:
- Discover that the feature exists.
- Understand what it does.
- Understand why it is useful.
- Know how to use it.
- Actually have a reason to use it.
Documentation helps, but documentation alone isn't product education.
A feature can be technically complete and still fail to get adoption.
That's something I'm starting to understand only after putting my projects in front of real people.
What I'm changing in my thinking
I'm starting to think about the process more like:
Idea → Development → Testing → Discovery → Education → Adoption → Feedback → Improvement
A feature that nobody discovers is almost like a feature that doesn't exist.
So I'm not only trying to build more features for Crowdwide.
I'm also thinking about how those features are introduced, discovered, and made useful to users.
Maybe that's one of the less obvious challenges of building software.
You don't just build the feature. You also have to build the path that leads users to it.
Try the projects
Crowdwide:
https://www.crowdwide.run.place/
Crowdwide source code:
https://github.com/DeveloperPuneet/Crowdwide
Rizzzler:
https://www.rizzzler.work.gd/
Rizzzler source code:
https://github.com/DeveloperPuneet/Rizzzler-Stable
It's only Day 3, so there's still a lot to build, test, improve, and probably break. 😂
But that's exactly why I'm building in public.
One more thing 🍫
To the users who actually discover these features, understand why they exist, and proudly use them:
You deserve a chocolate. 😂🍫
Seriously, if you're one of those people who finds a feature without me having to explain it, uses it properly, and then flexes it — you're exactly the kind of user every builder secretly dreams about. 😂
Consider this an unofficial Crowdwide Chocolate Award. 🏆🍫
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