Lately I have been thinking that a builder's perfectionism can also be a powerful way to keep users around.
1) For example, there was a product that displayed key lines from podcasts as cards. At first, I was drawn in by those cards too. But when I followed them to the web app, the experience was far from smooth. I even ran into a bug that should only ever have been visible to the developers.
2) Then there was a product with features similar to Poke, though it seemed to do more? During my first interaction with it, the conversation wandered onto another topic, and it cycled through asking for my name and other personal information three times. In other words, if I wanted to complete the first interaction in one go, I could not go off topic. I had to follow its pace. For a user, that is a little boring.
3) One small thing surprised me recently. If an MVP needs an API key, Vercel is genuinely great for a builder with almost no technical foundation. I do not need to think about where the API key should go. Vercel has already designed that part. When I test the app, a dialog simply appears and asks me to paste it in.
1) and 2) may be more closely related to “perfectionism,” because users like me should never have found those bugs. And I think a builder who spends more time testing repeatedly before a public release could find and fix them.
3) falls more under reducing friction for users. Even such a tiny detail is enough to make me think, wow, what a nice surprise! It gives the product a memory point that nothing else can replace for me.
I have been trying to build a few projects lately. AI caused many of the problems I ran into, and AI also helped me solve them. Of course, some are still unsolved... But when I find a tool that works well, I think, wow, I like this! Roo Code, for example! It is not that I do not want to pay for Cursor. My wallet will not let me... Sorry, I am unbelievably cheap! 😭
Also, why are overseas vibe-coding tools all priced so similarly, almost always around $20... RMB, could you please try a little harder? 🙂 (Oh no! Shouldn't I be the one trying harder and earning more money? 🙃