In my focus on building a visionary product, I overlooked the most critical piece—the onramp for new users. While refining advanced features, we neglected the first-time experience, leading to lost opportunities. Now, we’re making it right: fixing onboarding before chasing the future. Lesson learned—empathy starts at the entrance.

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As the CEO and CPO of Kaamfu, I’ve been deeply immersed in our product for two years. I use it daily. I know exactly how it works. For me, it’s a powerful, living system that’s getting better every day. But in the process of building this product I love, I made a critical mistake: I neglected the door.

While we’ve been focused on refining advanced workflows and building toward a future of AI-driven work control, we neglected the most basic yet essential component: the new user experience. The first steps. The onramp. We were so busy crafting the future that we left the entrance unfinished.

The feedback was clear. Prospects loved what they saw in demos. Our messaging resonated. But after signing up, they were met with a blank canvas. No clear direction. No immediate value. And without guidance, many simply drifted away before ever experiencing the true power of the platform.

It wasn’t a matter of not knowing this would be a problem. We knew. But like many product teams, we got carried away with the exciting features—the ones that felt game-changing to us—and assumed we’d get around to “polishing the basics” later. That “later” never came. The reality is, no matter how visionary a product is, if the first-time experience isn’t seamless, you’re burning through your hard-earned opportunities. Every dollar spent on growth is wasted if new users can’t easily understand what to do next.

We’ve now decided to make the hard trade-off: dedicate an entire sprint to finishing the onramp. Onboarding, support, quick-start guides, and immediate value delivery—these will take precedence over all future-facing features until we know every new user can walk through the door and feel at home.

This was a mistake of empathy. I was too busy looking ahead and forgot to turn around and build the pathway for those following behind. It’s a mistake every product leader is prone to, but one we must consciously guard against.

The future will always be there to build. But first, we need to make sure people can get in.

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