what 100 beta users taught me that I never would have guessed

I launched a free beta for my Saas product a few days ago. 100 users signed up. Here's what actually happened.

18% of visitors created an account. Higher than I expected honestly. The idea resonated. People got it fast.

But then everyone did the same thing. One search = paste a competitor's name, get a list of companies actively using them. Then leave.

Not a single person touched the filters. Not one used saved searches. Features I spent real time building completely ignored.

90% never came back after their first search.

I built a tool. They came, they saw.

And the feedback popup I baked in? Zero responses. The contact form? One person. One, asking me how the product works.

The humbling part isn't that people didn't like it, it's that they got what they needed and bounced. Which means either the value is too fast to consume, or I'm not giving them a reason to stay.

Things I'm rethinking now:

• Do I even need half the features I built?
• What happens after someone finds their prospect list?
• How do you retain users when your core value delivers in 30 seconds?

No clean answers yet. Still figuring it out.

If you've been through this with a beta, how did you turn one-time users into returning ones?