Graham McNicoll

Most product teams build features the expensive way. Someone has the idea. The team specs the whole thing. Engineering builds it. It ships. Then you find out whether users actually wanted it. By the time you have the answer, you have already spent money and time on it. The question worth asking first is simpler. Is there a cheaper way to get a signal on whether users want this, before I commit engineering cycles to it? From my experience, there usually is. It could even be a painted door test, where you build the entry point and a "coming soon" or a "sign up to learn more" page, but not the feature. Clicks on a painted door can be measured to signal interest. These kinds of tests are one of the cheapest, clearest demand signals you can get- you can even collect interest via a form for emailing when you do build it. You can add other metrics too to see if you're cannibalizing other parts of your product. How do you build it? Wrap the painted door and form in a flag, attach metrics and guardrails, then read the result. We make this easy at growthbook.io.