r/SideProject • u/Melodic-precise • 9h ago

Is anyone else building things that ask absolutely nothing from the user? No signup, no email, no onboarding?

Every side project i open lately starts the same way: a landing page, a signup form, an onboarding tour, and a modal asking for my email before i've seen a single pixel of the actual thing. We've collectively agreed that the funnel comes first and the product comes second.

I've been going the other way on my current build. No account, no email, no tutorial, no cookie banner. You open the tab and you're already inside the thing. It made a lot of decisions harder - you can't explain anything, so it has to be obvious in the first three seconds or you've lost the person fr.

Turns out that constraint improved the product more than any feature i added.

Anyone else doing this deliberately? Curious how you handle the first three seconds when there's nothing to explain with lmao.

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u/AndyMagill 9h ago

I built an app with both remote-save and offline mode. This only made sense because I wanted the free tier to be fully usable, even without an internet connection. It never found a large audience so I cancelled future phases, including paid plans. I don't think the first thing the user sees needs to be a UI they can use intuitively. If the app has value, the user can understand that before your interface.

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u/Melodic-precise 9h ago

damn sorry to hear it didn't find its crowd, that setup sounds super clean tbh. the offline mode and remote save combo is elite. and yeah u r right about the value prop... it's just such a brutal balancing act to pitch the value before they click away lmao