Built a £8/mo analytics tool that solves a real problem. 5 free trials, 0 conversions. What am I missing?
Consent popups kill 10-35% of conversions. 40-60% of visitors reject cookies anyway. So most UK businesses are blind to half their traffic.
I built Recorde.io to fix this. UK analytics without consent popups, using the new Data Use and Access Act (DUAA 2025).
What it does:
- Cookie-free tracking (notice + opt-out model, not consent)
- UK-only data hosting (London datacenters)
- Auto-generated ICO-compliant privacy notices
- 1.5KB script vs Google Analytics' 50KB
- See 98% of traffic instead of 40-60%
£8/mo for 100K pageviews. Just shipped billing with Mollie last week (keeping payments UK-side too).
The problem: crickets
I've got 5 users in free trials. Zero conversions.
The product works. The tech is solid (Go backend, hardened billing with race condition protection, real-time dashboard). The problem is real and quantifiable.
But I'm stuck at this stage where I can't figure out if:
❌ The positioning is wrong
❌ I'm reaching the wrong people
❌ It needs more time
❌ The problem isn't painful enough to pay for
What I've tried:
SEO content → traffic is coming but glacially slow
UK startup Slack groups → "interesting!" but no conversions
HN launch → upvotes, minimal signups
LinkedIn → absolutely nothing
Direct outreach to ecommerce brands → ignored
Where I'm stuck:
- Explaining the value quickly
"DUAA 2025 compliance" means nothing to most people. "Analytics without consent popups" gets more interest but doesn't trigger urgency.
Is this a "vitamin not painkiller" problem?
- Finding the right audience
Who actually cares about this? I think it's:
UK ecommerce stores obsessed with conversion rate
SaaS companies tired of cookie banners
Agencies managing multiple UK clients
But where do these people actually hang out online?
- Breaking the GA inertia
"Just use Google Analytics" is the default response, even though GA requires consent popups now. Free + familiar beats better + paid.
How do you compete with free when you're trying to charge £8/mo?
The ask:
For anyone who's built dev tools, analytics products, or B2B SaaS:
How did you get your first 10 paying customers?
Is 5 trials / 0 conversions after a few months a "keep going" signal or a "pivot the positioning" signal?
Should I focus on the privacy angle, the conversion optimization angle, or something else entirely?
Brutal honesty appreciated. I'm at the stage where I need to figure out if this is a distribution problem or a product-market fit problem.
Tech details for the nerds:
Go ingestion service + PostgreSQL
Mollie billing
Session fingerprinting (cookie-free)
Real-time dashboard with circuit breaker polling
Krystal VPS (UK data sovereignty)
Happy to answer questions about the regulatory stuff, the tech stack, or share more details on what's not working 🙏
5 trials / 0 conversions isn't a signal to pivot - it's a signal that trial users aren't experiencing the value before the trial ends.
The problem you've identified is real (10-35% conversion loss from consent popups). But your messaging is leading with the mechanism (DUAA compliance, cookie-free tracking) instead of the outcome.
Here's what I'd test:
Reframe the entire pitch around one metric: "See 98% of your traffic instead of 40%."
That's the painkiller. Everything else - compliance, no popups, UK hosting - is how you deliver it, not why someone pays.
On the trial-to-paid gap:
You mentioned trial users aren't converting. The question isn't "do they understand the value?" - it's "did they experience it during the trial?"
If they're signing up, installing the script, but not seeing a dramatic difference in their analytics dashboard compared to GA, they won't convert. The "aha moment" needs to be visceral and immediate.
Some things to investigate:
If trial users aren't taking those specific actions, they're not experiencing the value. And if they're not experiencing it, they won't pay.
On positioning:
You asked if this is a "vitamin vs painkiller" problem. It's neither. It's a "wrong pain" problem.
The pain isn't "I need DUAA compliance." The pain is "I'm blind to half my traffic and my conversion rate is suffering because of these annoying popups."
Agencies obsessed with conversion rate optimization - those are your people. Not because they care about compliance, but because they're already testing popup variations, measuring drop-off, and would pay £8/mo to eliminate the popup entirely if it measurably improves conversion.
One tactical suggestion:
Instead of broad outreach, find 3-5 UK ecommerce brands with high traffic, reach out with one specific offer:
"I'll install analytics on your site that shows you exactly how much traffic you're missing due to cookie consent. No commitment. Just want to show you the data."
If the data is as dramatic as you say (98% vs 40-60%), that's the pitch. The visual comparison is the conversion moment.