Among the feedback we have received on The Playground, one organiser’s response captures the difficulty well. The product interests them. They are considering using it. But their community is already gathered elsewhere, their automations work and their current tool helps people discover their events.
Switching therefore asks far more of them than creating a new account. It means moving some of their habits, relationships and ways of working. An additional feature does not necessarily address that difficulty.
Building The Playground with AI made an ambitious product possible with limited people resources. It did not automatically bring the people who use it, or the reasons they would return. This experience puts distribution and adoption back at the centre of product decisions.
The ability to build changes the starting point
An idea can now take shape quickly. We can explore an interface, build a user journey and put an initial version in front of users without immediately committing a large team.
This is valuable. It allows us to test more options and make choices open to discussion earlier. It also creates a temptation: respond to every hesitation with a new feature, because we know how to produce it.
Building and operating a reliable product remains demanding. But as implementation effort falls, it becomes even more useful to check that the effort addresses what actually prevents adoption. The obstacle may lie in the value proposition, access to users or the cost of switching.
Reaching the right people is part of product work
Distribution describes how a product reaches its users. It may happen through a community, a commercial relationship, partners, search or use that spreads among colleagues.
These routes have implications for the product. Someone arriving through a peer’s recommendation already has context and a degree of trust. Someone discovering a page needs to understand for themselves who the service is for and what to expect from it.
On a community platform, organisers and participants also play different roles. An organiser can create the opportunity for several people to use it for the first time. Their experience may then encourage the organiser to use it again, or give them a reason to return to their previous tool.
Choosing the initial audience therefore matters as much as the feature list. We can look for situations where the need is strong enough and the change manageable enough to learn with real users.
Understand what someone has to leave behind
The organiser’s feedback on The Playground shows that the comparison goes beyond screens. Their current tool holds an audience, automations and habits. Even if imperfect, it offers continuity.
To assess a new solution, we need to look at what it provides and what it asks of people. How much work does preparing the first event involve? What information needs transferring? Who needs persuading? What might be lost?
These questions may lead us to ease the transition, offer a limited first use or choose a different audience. They may also lead us to postpone a feature that seems interesting but removes none of these obstacles.
Adoption is therefore prepared during design. It becomes observable as soon as someone genuinely tries to do something with the product.
Look for signs of a lasting need
Product-market fit describes the match between a product and a market. A well-received demonstration signals interest. It does not yet tell us whether the product is finding a regular place in users’ lives.
For The Playground, useful questions focus particularly on repeated use: does an organiser return for their next event? Do participants reconnect with their community? What explains someone leaving or returning?
Frequency needs to match the activity. We do not expect an occasional event organiser to log in every day. Monitoring needs to focus on whether they return when the need arises again, and whether they accomplish what they came to do.
Sequoia’s work on retention suggests tracking returning users in cohorts based on when they first joined. This is a useful reference, interpreted in light of the product’s rhythm and qualitative feedback. A curve alone tells us little about why people stay.
For a paid product, willingness to pay and the economics also form part of the fit to examine. For a free platform, usage alone does not demonstrate a viable business model.
What can become difficult to replicate
A moat is a lasting advantage that others find hard to replicate. A feature can be copied. A trusted relationship, an active community or an established place in people’s working practices can take much longer to build.
These advantages are not secured simply by having a community or integrations. The relationships need to create real value, people need to find a reason to stay and that value needs to endure as the market changes.
We also need to distinguish an adopted product from a defensible one. A good fit with a need can quickly attract competitors. And effective distribution can bring many first-time users to a service they will not use again.
For The Playground, these are questions we are working on, not outcomes we consider proven. They guide what comes next as much as the new possibilities agents offer.
When we can build faster, it makes sense to devote some of that capacity to learning: try a proposition with a specific audience, observe a first use, understand why someone gives up. This connects Explore AI through experimentation with Improve and maintain products: use what we build to inform decisions, then develop the product around what finds a place in people’s lives.