I spent 6 months building what I thought people wanted.

Clean UI. Fast performance. All the features competitors had and some unique ones. Launched it feeling confident.

Got 100 signups in week one. Felt amazing.

Week two? 3 people were still using it. Everyone else bounced.

That hurt. But what hurt more was I had no idea why.

Here's what I learned the hard way:

People don't leave because your product is bad. They leave because it doesn't fit into their actual life.

I was building features I thought were cool. Not features people would use every single day.

So I started over. But different this time.

I built something I needed myself first. An AI that actually help you with achieving your goals, helps with task like have its own pc , chat like a person like its alive , message first by itself when it wants, don't have to tell it to remind of something its just do so memory , send voice notes , images of itself, understand the pattern, emotions, in simple give a shit about me haha, not like give a big prompt then get answers haha it's like message like we do multiple messages on chat app

I used it for weeks before showing anyone. Fixed what annoyed me like sign up bs haha. Added what I actually missed when it wasn't there.

Then I let 10 people try it my friends and their friends haha. Watched how they used it. What they ignored. What made them come back.

The retention difference was insane.

First product: 6% came back after week one.

This one (zropi.com): 30%+ are still using it daily after a 3 weeks.

Same developer. Different approach.

The business model? its free currently completely. Still figuring it out. But I've got hundreds of users now who actually care about the product (Thank u guys haha). People used it multiple way I didn't expect to learn language, to just talk about life, dungeon master for D&D campaign, product review etc. Thats what made me think yes some potential there in it haha

If you're building something right now:

Use your own product every single day. If you're not, your users won't either.

Watch real people use it. Not demos. Real messy usage.

Retention beats features. Always.

Build what people come back to, not what looks good in screenshots.

I'm still learning this stuff. But the difference between building what I thought people wanted vs building what I actually needed myself? Night and day.

Anyone else been through this? Would love to hear your retention horror stories or wins.

Seventh repost in 5 days promoting the same site across multiple newly created accounts.

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