You built something useful. You shipped it fast. Maybe you even ran a tidy launch thread on LinkedIn. And now… it’s dead weight. Buried in your UI. Ignored.
This isn’t a development problem. Or even a design one.
It’s a discovery problem – and it’s killing your product.
Discovery Is the Bottleneck
Most founders we speak to are obsessed with building. Features, integrations, dashboards, new flows – always new flows.
But the real bottleneck, the thing that quietly crushes adoption, is this:
“Can users find and understand what we’ve already built?”
If the answer’s no, it doesn’t matter how clever or clean the thing is. It won’t get used. It won’t create value. It won’t stick.
This isn’t just a UX detail. It’s a growth ceiling.
Why Good Features Go Unused
A few reasons:
- Built fast, introduced poorly: The changelog went out, the feature was live… but no onboarding, no prompts, no in-context help.
- Buried behind layers of UI: Think: three-dot menus, obscure settings, modals-within-modals.
- Over-reliance on user memory: Just because you tweeted about it once doesn’t mean users remember.
In most early-stage products, even flagship features get hidden behind bad timing, vague icons, or mental load.
And when that happens, the product doesn’t feel more powerful. It feels more confusing.
Founders: Shipping Isn’t the Finish Line
You think you shipped it. But did you?
Let’s define “shipped” properly:
- Can a first-time user find it within 2–3 clicks?
- Do they understand what it does without reading a doc?
- Can they use it at the right time, not just when it’s shown?
If the answer is no to any of those, then no – you didn’t ship it. You launched it. That’s not the same.
Shipping includes discovery. Adoption. Actual use.
What It Looks Like
You’ve probably seen this pattern in your own product:
- “Insights” tab that’s just a graph of totals. Users don’t return, because it doesn’t offer insight – or they never found it.
- Power feature hidden behind a tiny icon in the nav. Looks clean. Works poorly.
- Onboarding walkthrough that skips your highest-value flow. Because it felt too long to explain, so you left it out.
And it shows up in feedback like:
- “Didn’t realise we could do that.”
- “Only found it after a support call.”
- “Would’ve been helpful earlier.”
If you’ve ever said “we already have that” in a call, this post is for you.
Design for Discovery, Not Just Delivery
This isn’t a redesign problem. It’s a UX responsibility.
Discovery is how you connect what’s possible with what’s obvious.
Here’s how to start:
- Use empty states to guide action. Instead of blank slates, show feature entry points where context matters most.
- Layer prompts by intent. A banner on login is noise. A contextual nudge during the right flow is gold.
- Make entry points visible and descriptive. Icons need labels. Dropdowns need purpose. Help your user self-navigate.
- Build progressive discovery. Don’t teach everything on day one – surface it when they’re ready.
UX is not just clarity. It’s timing, framing, and memory.
Real UX = Real Usage
The best products don’t have more features. They have more visible ones.
Visible means:
- Placed where users are already active
- Framed in terms of outcomes, not features
- Timed to appear at the right moment of friction or curiosity
If your user needs to “figure it out,” they probably won’t.
Stop building for the demo. Start designing for real discovery.
Most founders don’t have a shipping problem. They have a hiding problem.
Because the best feature in the world is worthless if no one knows it’s there.