Pro tip: I spent 6 months building a budgeting app before talking to actual users

I was working on this personal finance tool for Canadians saving for a house down payment. I coded all these features like auto categorization and spending alerts. After 6 months of work I showed it to my cousin who works at Wealthsimple in Toronto. She asked me one question: does it handle the new FHSA rules properly? I had no idea what she was talking about. I had built the whole thing based on what I thought people needed not what they actually deal with. Turns out the first thing any first time home buyer wants is clear info on registered accounts not fancy charts. So I went back and interviewed 10 people in my network about their saving habits. Every single one mentioned the FHSA as their top concern. I completely missed the biggest fintech opportunity in Canada right now because I was too busy coding in a bubble. Has anyone else shipped a feature nobody asked for because you skipped the user research part?

2 comments

2 Comments

emery_flores2d ago

Honestly though, sometimes talking to users too early can steer you in the wrong direction. People say they want FHSA help but half of them won't even know the difference between a TFSA and an RRSP after you explain it. Building first and validating later can sometimes uncover a need nobody knew they had.

ellis.leo1d ago

You said "sometimes talking to users too early can steer you in the wrong direction" and I used to feel the exact same way. I thought building first and showing later was the only way to keep momentum going, like you'd lose all your spark if you slowed down to ask questions. But this post changed my mind pretty hard. I realized that "steering in the wrong direction" is only a problem if you don't know where you're headed in the first place, and talking to people is the only way to find that out. I'd rather get nudged off course early than wake up six months later with a product nobody needs, which is basically what happened here.