I had an MVP. I had a plan. I was this close to launching Quala, a feedback tool for SaaS trials. The concept was simple: ask users how their trial is going on day 1, day 3, day 7, etc. Classic playbook.

But before pulling the trigger, I soft-launched in a few Reddit communities, Product Management, Customer Success, etc. not to promote, but to learn.

Instead of generic praise or silence, I got real feedback like:

A few weeks ago I posted here asking how other SaaS founders figure out why trial users don t convert.

The replies hit home especially the frustration with silence. People vanish before you know if they were serious, and by the time you ask, it s too late.

I assume I'm not the only one dealing with this problem, so I'll seek advice from those more experienced and perhaps those who have a proven track record.

Whenever a user reaches the payment gateway, they often suddenly leave, either by uninstalling the app or closing the page.

I'm talking to founders who struggle with trial-to-paid conversion. Most of the ones I've chatted with say the same thing:

"We get signups, but users go quiet after a few days. We have no idea what went wrong until they're already gone."

Building something in the SaaS feedback space (frustrated with how generic and expensive current tools are).

Was discussing positioning with Claude when it dropped this:

"Better features + Lower price + Specific focus = Market disruption. You own this specific category."

I ve launched a few small tools before, but I usually skipped the whole talk to people first step. I d just build, ship, and hope something stuck.

This time, I m trying something different. I started asking around about a pain I kept noticing, SaaS free trials and how hard it is to get meaningful feedback from users.

A/B testing is supposed to systematically isolate winning and losing acquisition funnel content.

My biggest struggle, by FAR, is understanding why people bounce from my landing page after clicking through my ad.

Community-driven product development is a huge advantage hearing directly from your users fuels better ideas and stronger loyalty. But it also comes with a classic challenge: feature bloat.

How do you decide which user requests to say yes to, and which to decline without alienating your audience? How do you keep your product vision focused and sharp when the feedback pulls in so many directions?

I d love to hear your strategies for balancing user-driven growth with staying true to your core mission. What frameworks or decision-making processes have worked for you?

Let s share best practices on how to build with community input without losing product clarity.