Here’s a review standard every founder should borrow. Not “does it work?” but “would the user want to be in here?” Those are two very different questions, and the space between them is where a lot of good work quietly can go flat.
I got a front-row seat to that last week.
Quick catch-up if you’re new here. During a hackathon, I put together a working Alpha version of Wayfindher on a deadline, the way you build anything with a clock running. Fast, scrappy, and very proud of itself. Once the dust settled, with the help of AI, I pulled together an inventory of everything that version actually does: every feature, what’s connected, and what isn’t. On Tuesday I went through it one item at a time. Keep it, change it, or take it out.
Most of it was the kind of call you can make before your coffee kicks in. Then I got to Circles.
Circles are the small groups inside Wayfindher where a woman connects with other women who are building where she is. It’s the community piece, and community isn’t an afterthought for Wayfindher. It’s one of the three things the whole company stands on.
The version worked. You could post, you could read, and it ran. My notes: “I find the whole Circles experience really, really poor.” Then, a little more useful: “It just felt flat and not a safe place for discussion.” And the one that matters most: “It doesn’t feel alive or a place I want to be or share.”
Here’s the call that came out of it. I didn’t go through the pieces one by one and fix each of them. I sent the whole of Circles back to be rethought. When the problem is the feeling, patching the parts just gets you a tidier version of flat.
Same day, different feature. Your Pulse is the quick check-in where she tells Wayfindher how her day is actually going. I want it showing up more often, because “start of day and end of day may look very different.” At least they do for me, and I am building this for women like me.
And underneath all of it: anything decided on a deadline is temporary, and it gets decided again, on purpose. On Sunday, I started going back through the calls made only for the sprint, one at a time.
So here’s the test. When the deadline is over and the thing you made is technically done, walk through it the way the user you made it for will. Not as the builder checking boxes. As them, on a regular Tuesday, with fifteen minutes and other things to do. Notice where you’d want to stay and where you’d want to leave. “It works” is the floor. It’s not the review.
What’s one part of your business that runs just fine and still doesn’t feel alive? Hit reply and tell me.
And if you want Wayfindher in your inbox every other week, the Newsletter, Something to Build On, is waiting for you at wayfindher.com.
~amy