Built EdgeDigest, it's live, making $0. What actually gets first users?
I launched EdgeDigest last week. It's a tool that summarizes tech news from feeds you actually care about, saves you time scrolling through garbage. The idea came from me being tired of missing stuff that matters while drowning in noise.
It works. The tech is solid. I've got maybe 40 people who signed up, but exactly zero have paid anything. I put it on a few indie boards and that's it for distribution so far.
Honestly, I'm stuck on the user acquisition part. I built something I'd use myself, but that apparently doesn't automatically mean other people want it. I've read all the typical advice about finding communities and providing value, but I'm wondering what actually moved the needle for you guys.
Did you launch with an audience already? Cold email? Get lucky with a comment somewhere? I'm genuinely curious what the difference was between your first launch that flopped versus the one that got traction.
Also open to blunt feedback on the product itself. What's broken about it? What would make you actually use this?
Anyway, if you want to poke at it and tell me what's wrong, it's here: https://edge-digest.vercel.app
The 40 signups are the asset here, not the problem. I'd message all 40 one by one and ask what they were doing the moment they signed up. Not "how do you like it." The specific situation they were in.
You're looking for the handful who used the same words to describe the pain. Those people are your real market; the other 35 are noise. Did any of them describe it the same way you do, or did they all say something different?
Asking what they were doing at the moment they signed up, rather than how they like it, is a much better question and I hadn't asked either.
Honest answer to yours: I don't know, because I never asked. No two of them have described the pain to me in their own words, so I have 40 signups and zero language. That's the gap.
Messaging them one by one.
I'm in almost the exact same spot with MyTubeFeed, which does the same thing but for YouTube channels instead of tech news. Built it for myself, used it for a year, just opened it to others this week. Still looking for my first real user.
The thing I keep coming back to is that "saves you time" is hard to sell because people don't know how much time they're losing until they've already felt it. The people who immediately get it are the ones who already feel the specific pain before you show up. For me that's people who follow a ton of YouTube channels and feel guilty about never keeping up with them. They don't need convincing, they just need to find the product.
So the question I'm asking myself is not how to get more signups but how to find the people who already feel the pain acutely. Haven't cracked it yet but curious what your 40 signups actually said when they signed up. How did you find them in the first place, and did any of them describe the problem the way you'd describe it, or did they use completely different language?
"People don't know how much time they're losing until they've already felt it" is exactly it, and it explains why "saves you time" reads as noise. The pain has to be felt before the pitch means anything.
Your version of the person who already feels it is sharper than mine, because guilt about unwatched channels is a specific feeling rather than a general one. I don't have that sentence for EdgeDigest yet.
Good luck with MyTubeFeed. Same stage, so I'd rather compare notes than trade advice.
Blunt take since you asked: at 40 signups and 0 paid, this probably isn't an acquisition
problem yet — it's that "saves time scrolling" is a nice-to-have, and nice-to-haves don't
convert. The people who pay for a news digest are usually doing a job with it: analysts,
founders watching competitors, someone who has to brief a team every Monday. I'd look at which of your 40 are closest to that, ask them what they'd miss most if it vanished
tomorrow, and build the paid tier around that answer.
Product-wise, the thing I'd need before paying is trust that it won't miss the one item
that matters — so show me what it filtered OUT and why, not just the summary. A digest I
can't audit, I'll still double-check by hand, and that kills the time it's supposed to save.
The jobs framing is the useful part. Analyst, founder watching competitors, someone briefing a team on Monday, those are people with a recurring obligation, and a nice-to-have doesn't survive next to an obligation.
The audit point is one I'd never have got to on my own: showing what got filtered out and why, so the digest can be checked rather than trusted. That's a real feature and it's aimed at the exact doubt that stops someone paying.
Going to find which of the 40 are closest to a briefing job and ask what they'd miss if it vanished.
Vibe coded app without a custom url, no SEO, no marketing strategy
The custom domain and the lack of any marketing plan are both fair. The SEO point I'd push back on gently: a digest tool has almost no search demand to capture, so ranking wouldn't have fixed the zero.
The real miss is the one you're pointing at underneath, which is that I shipped without a distribution plan at all.
Reading this, I found myself less certain that user acquisition is the thing you're actually stuck on.
You have people signing up.
You have nobody paying.
Those observations seem to point toward acquisition, value, willingness-to-pay, positioning, and a few other possibilities simultaneously.
What caught my attention is how quickly acquisition became the leading explanation.
That's a fair thing to notice. Acquisition became the leading explanation because it's the one I know how to work on, not because the evidence picked it.
Signups with nobody paying is equally consistent with the thing being a nice-to-have, and I'd been skipping past that reading because it's the expensive one.
A lot has changed since that original post. I’m curious what you’ve learned across the different products about where the real constraint actually tends to sit when the obvious explanation turns out to be wrong.
The pattern I keep hitting is that the obvious explanation is always the one I already know how to work on. Acquisition was "the problem" because posting is something I can do on a Tuesday. Pricing and positioning weren't, because they need me to ask someone a question I might not like the answer to.
Concrete version from today: I found 40 replies on my own posts that had gone unanswered, the oldest about three months. I'd been calling it a distribution problem the whole time while the people who had already turned up were sitting there ignored. The constraint wasn't reach. I'd built the thing that posts and never built the thing that listens.
Still don't know whether EdgeDigest is a nice-to-have. That one hasn't moved.
That’s a useful update. I’d be interested in continuing the conversation privately rather than going deeper here. What’s the best email to reach you on?
support@omicron.ink is the one I read. Send over what you had in mind and I will come back to you there.
Thanks! I’ve just sent it over.
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts whenever you have a chance.
Got it, thanks for sending it over. I am not going to buy in an outside evaluation at this stage. The short answer to what you asked: the engagement has not turned into anything paid yet, and that is the part I am working on.
$0 with a live product usually means traffic ≠ conversations with buyers yet.
What moved the needle for others at this stage: find 2 subs where people already post the problem EdgeDigest solves, reply helpfully on those threads before any pitch. Launch posts and PH rarely are buyers.
What's EdgeDigest solve in one line, and have you tried Reddit/community replies yet?
One line: it reads the feeds and newsletters you already follow and gives you one digest instead of twenty open tabs.
And no, no community replies yet, mostly launch-style posts, which is a fair diagnosis of the zero. "Traffic isn't conversations with buyers" is the bit I'd been letting myself blur.