Hi, I’m Wanlu. I’m building tools to help people understand their own online activity.
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Hi everyone, I’m Wanlu, an indie maker building X Account Risk Monitor, a Chrome extension that helps people review X actions saved locally in their browser.
I’m interested in a question that goes beyond this product: how do you help someone see the value of a tool before they urgently need it? I’m also learning how to explain what a product can observe clearly enough for people to decide whether to trust it.
I’d love to meet other makers working on privacy, account tools, or products that help users make sense of their own data. How have you explained the value of a product that people may only appreciate later?
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Hi Wanlu. We hit the same wall in a different domain: we build an immigration app, and “your permit expires in 5 months, start now” is the least clickable sentence we’ve ever written. Nobody values a reminder until the deadline has already passed.
What moved it for us was dropping the abstract value and showing one concrete number as early as possible. Instead of “we help you stay on top of your renewals,” the first screen now asks for the date on your card and answers with “42 days left, you can file from March 15.” Suddenly it’s not a promise about the future, it’s a fact about today, and people share a fact.
The other thing: we show what the tool knows before asking for anything. The free diagnosis runs before signup. For a privacy product like yours that might matter even more, letting someone watch what the extension observes on their own activity for a minute, before they decide to keep it.
Curious whether you’ve tried the “one scary number” route for X accounts, something like “3 of your posts in the last 30 days match patterns that got other accounts flagged.” That’s the kind of line that makes someone care before they urgently need to.
@daniela_pilla I really agree with your point that people respond to a concrete fact they can understand today, even when they don’t yet feel the future risk.
After building the extension, I’ve been thinking about the gap between what the product can do and when people feel a reason to use it. I’d like to meet a small group of early users, share useful information about X’s public rules and activity patterns, and learn from the situations they’re actually facing. Their feedback could help me show the value earlier and improve the product.
I’d love to stay in touch and compare what we learn along the way.
@wanlu_wang 100% the cycle of discovery, learning, iteration, integrate and back to discovery is a never ending process and I think asking a couple of users to do a sort of digital diary studies could really help you out. And yes on keeping in touch!
Welcome to Product Hunt! The fact that it only reads what's already saved in my browser is what I'd put front and center. That's what would get me to install it. I've always loved that Apple shipped stuff with no manual. If it takes a paragraph to explain what the extension sees, I'd just show a screenshot of it instead, people get that in a second.
@hisashispace That’s a great point. I love your Apple comparison. A good screenshot can make something clear in seconds. Thanks for sharing such a thoughtful suggestion!
@wanlu_wang Thanks Wanlu! Can't wait to see that screenshot on your page. Good luck with X Account Risk Monitor ☺️