Hira Maqsood

When I started building, I used my own tool all the time. That was kind of the whole reason I made it. I had a problem, nothing out there fixed it the way I wanted, so I built something.

But lately I ve noticed something.

Most of my time now goes into fixing bugs, answering emails, thinking about pricing, writing posts... and I barely use the product the way a normal user would anymore. I open it to test things, not to actually get stuff done with it.

And I m not sure if that s a problem or just what happens as things grow.

I shut down a project last month that I d been working on for about eight months. It had a handful of paying users, a few nice messages, and growth that basically flatlined after the first launch spike. The weird part is I probably knew it wasn t working around month four. I just kept telling myself one more feature would fix it.

Talking to other makers, I ve noticed two camps:

1. People who give something 90 days, check the numbers, and move on without much drama.

2. People (like me) who hang on way too long because quitting feels like admitting the idea was bad.

Would love to hear how you think about this:

I watched a stranger use our product for the first time last week. Screen share, I just stayed quiet and watched.

It was painful

She skipped the welcome screen, missed the main button, and spent almost two minutes in settings looking for something that was right on the dashboard.

Everything we thought was obvious wasn't.