Ask HN: What do you do to receive honest feedback for your products?

>Especially when you're just starting out, and have no users yet.

Add analytics, even rudimentary. Something like PostHog is good.

Add monitoring (Sentry) so you catch exceptions in your code when soon to be people and systems use your product without them having to report them. You'll fix problems faster and prioritize (most frequent, most impactful, etc).

Create a Slack workspace where your users could ask questions.

Get users.

Observe behavior and usage. Keep an eye on non-consumption. Schedule calls with them and ask about what they're trying to accomplish with your product.

If they're not using a feature you know they need or have stopped using it (from analytics), ask why they're not using it or not using it anymore (the load time is just too long, it's buggy, it doesn't support their use case, they moved on to something else or to another role).

Look at where people are coming from (referrers in analytics) but also ask them where they're coming from (community? subreddit? HN? Word of mouth? Someone mentioned it? Who? Ask them. Rinse and repeat. Investigate everything.)

Look at email addresses and their domains. Are they university accounts? Are there many from the same organization? Investigate. Ask questions on how they signed up and what they're trying to do.

You want to get users. You'll get all the feedback you need, either active or passive (them not using something, not doing something, dropping something mid-action).

Ask questions. Don't really ask for "feedback" because you're putting them on the spot. Ask "Have you tried x?". If you're aware of an issue in something, let it out, they may laugh and be relieved because they didn't want to break it to you, but you did and now they can go on about why something sucks for them because they now know you won't be butthurt if they say something.

Ask questions to know the problem they are trying to solve and you'll get reasons or usage or non-usage (work in a very sensitive organization and they can't, regulations, formats, etc).

Asking for "feedback" in the form it is most known is like asking someone what they think of you. Mostly useless and uncomfortable. You want people to be comfortable sharing with you, and they're most comfortable talking about the problems they're having.

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