What's something you built that you thought was genius and nobody used?
Three months. Two developers. One feature nobody used.
I knew it was bad when I checked the analytics and saw that the only person who used it more than once was me. And even I stopped after the second week.
Here's how I knew it was a waste of time. Not in hindsight. In the moment. I just ignored the signs.
The first sign: I couldn't explain it in one sentence.
If you can't tell someone what your feature does in 10 words, you don't know what it does. I gave this big rambling pitch about "content planning and scheduling and automation." People nodded. Nobody asked follow-up questions.
The second sign: Nobody asked for it.
I built it because I thought it was clever. Not because anyone said "I wish I had this." I was so proud of the idea that I forgot to check if anyone actually wanted it.
The third sign: I was the only one excited about it.
When we launched, my team was quiet. No one was testing it. No one was sharing it with clients. That should have been a red flag. When the people closest to the product aren't using it, no one else will.
The fourth sign: I kept explaining why it was useful.
Good products don't need explaining. You show them once and people get it. I found myself explaining over and over. "Here's why this is helpful. Here's the problem it solves." If you have to explain why it's useful, it's not useful.
The fifth sign: I was attached to the idea, not the problem.
I wanted this feature to exist. I wanted to be right about it. So I ignored all the signs and kept building. That's the dangerous part. You fall in love with your own cleverness and stop listening to the world telling you it's not working.
What I learned:
Now I don't build anything without three things. One, a one-sentence pitch that makes sense to anyone. Two, five people who say "yes I need that" before I write a line of code. Three, the willingness to kill something that isn't working even if I already built it.
The feature died. But I stopped wasting time on stuff nobody asked for. That was worth the three months.
What's the thing you built that you thought was genius and nobody used? What signs did you ignore?
Imed Radhouani
Founder & CTO – Rankfender
Building things people actually use (and why I built Rankfender to stop guessing)
Replies
Termsy
Just checked out your product, Rankfender, looks damn useful. However, the "Watch how it works (1 min)" button seems to be broken (or maybe it's just me).
My story doesn't include anything I felt was "genius" but definitely something I felt was very useful.
The first product I launched on ProductHunt was @Termsy , it was based on a one-time frustration I had while having to scan terms and conditions. Unexpectedly, it was well received here.
The next time, I worked on a product, I tried to solve a much longer frustration: the trouble I go through constantly as a graphic designer trying to download logos. That's when I created @Downlogo. I personally use it a lot, every now and then, but it never took off...
I still lie awake at night sometimes thinking why no one saw value in that xD
Rankfender
@arungopidas Hey Arun! really appreciate you checking out Rankfender. And thanks for the heads up on the broken link, we're fixing it. That's the kind of thing you don't catch until someone points it out.
I checked out Termsy and Downlogo. Termsy makes sense. The terms and conditions thing is a pain everyone has felt. Downlogo is one of those things that seems so obvious in hindsight. I'm surprised it didn't take off. The "I still lie awake at night" part is real. You build something you use yourself, you know it's useful, and then you wait for people to find it. Sometimes they just don't.
Actually, we're working on RASE v1.0, Rankfender App Store Engine. It tracks how apps show up in AI answers and store search, and propose enhancements... ( Oops ! this is very secret :D )
Would love to get your take on it when it's ready. Happy to give you early access when we launch !!
Built a goal tracking app. Got the idea from a popular blogger who did yearly goal tracking with spreadsheets — her New Year article gets thousands of shares every December. I thought: make it an app, make it easier, people will come.
They didn't.
I was betting on March — when people realize their January resolutions failed and look for a better tool. But here's what I missed: if your goals failed by March, a prettier tracker won't save them. The goals themselves were the problem. Vague, unmeasurable, too ambitious.
The sign I ignored: I kept explaining WHY people should track goals instead of asking why their goals fail. The answer isn't better tracking. It's better goal-setting. If "get healthier" is your goal, no app can track that.
So now I'm building something different — an AI assistant that sits before the tracker. It helps you turn "get healthier" into "run 3x per week" before you start tracking. The hard part isn't the tool. It's figuring out how to help people set goals they'll actually be happy with. Still guessing. But at least I'm asking the right question now.
Rankfender
@valentina_konuhova The spreadsheet thing is a trap. You see something working manually and think automating it will make it better. But the spreadsheet worked because of the person using it, not the format. The app just had empty fields. No voice, no examples, no way of thinking. Just a form.
The March thing is brutal. You bet on the moment people feel the failure. But when they fail, they don't want a tool. They want to not think about it at all. So nobody shows up.
The "if your goals failed by March, a prettier tracker won't save them" line is the truth. The goals were the problem. The tool was just a mirror. You can't track your way out of a bad goal.
The new thing sounds right though. Fix the goal before you track it. That's the part nobody helps with. Everyone assumes you already know what you want. Most people don't.
What are you calling it, if I may ??
Early on with Hello Aria, we built this elaborate "smart context" system that would automatically infer what kind of task you were doing and pre-load relevant information before you even asked. We spent weeks on it. We were convinced it was going to be the killer feature.
Nobody noticed it existed. Users just wanted the basics done reliably — reminders, calendar summaries, follow-up nudges.
Turned out people don't want magic inference; they want things that just work. That lesson shaped everything after. We stripped back the clever stuff and doubled down on the unsexy reliability. Now we've got ~3k users ahead of our April 10th Product Hunt launch, and the most common compliment is "it just works."
The graveyard of genius features is a powerful teacher.
Rankfender
@sai_tharun_kakirala The graveyard of genius features is exactly right. The thing you spend weeks on, the thing you think will set you apart — nobody notices. Or worse, they notice and get confused. Then you strip it back and the boring reliable stuff is what keeps people around.
The "smart context" thing sounds like something I would have built. Clever, elaborate, solving a problem nobody asked to have solved. Meanwhile people just want the thing to not break when they ask for a reminder.
Three thousand users before launch is solid. That's real traction. The "it just works" compliment is the one you actually want. Not "it's so smart" but "it did what I needed without me thinking about it."
What's the boring reliable feature you ended up keeping that you almost cut?
Love this. Painfully relatable.
I once built a terminal-based Spotify controller just because I thought it was cool to run music from the terminal.
No one asked for it.
No one needed it.
Even I stopped using it after the novelty wore off.
It checked every box you mentioned:
– Couldn’t explain why it was better than just opening Spotify
– Zero real demand
– I was the only one excited about it
– Had to convince people why it was useful
– Fell in love with the idea, not the problem
It felt like a “builder flex”, not a product.
That experience flipped a switch for me:
Now I try to validate pain before building features.
Because “this is cool” ≠ “this is needed”
Rankfender
@pratham_khodwe The terminal Spotify controller is such a perfect example. It's exactly the kind of thing you build because you can, not because anyone should. And the "builder flex" is real. Sometimes you just want to see if you can do it. Nothing wrong with that, but it's not a product.
The "couldn't explain why it was better than just opening Spotify" is the part that kills it. If the answer is "it's not better, it's just different," you're in trouble.
The switch you made is the one that took me way too long. Validate pain before you build. Not "would this be cool" but "does this actually hurt." If people aren't feeling the pain, they're not going to use your thing no matter how clever it is.
What's the first thing you built after that switch? Something someone actually asked for?