richie is foraging
@richie
I once lived in Airbnbs for months - not to travel, but to build a startup. Everything I owned fit in my backpack. Every 3–5 days, I’d pack up and move again. New place. New host. New chaos. Why? Because our product was for Airbnb hosts/guests - and we weren’t hosts ourselves. So we became the customer. We wanted to solve turnover scheduling, cleaning, and guest comms. But the pain points weren’t obvious from the outside. So we immersed ourselves in the world of 2015 Airbnb: • Misrepresented listings • Incomplete cleanings and angry guests • Hosts sharing horror stories of past bookings • Hosts forgetting to leave the keys out (we got locked out at 2AM) Later, we became hosts ourselves. We were Superhosts. We understood the mess, the stress, the last-minute fire drills - because we LIVED them. It was exhausting. Expensive. Totally not scalable. But it gave us an edge - we saw what others didn’t... 1/2
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richie is foraging
@richie
That’s what “do things that don’t scale” really means. And it’s what taught me the first rule of product: You don’t understand the pain until you’ve felt it yourself. It’s a lesson I’ve carried into building Forage - where we obsess over everyone's unique relationship to email just as deeply. We sit down next to people and look at their inbox with them. To understand how they think about it, and what system they've created (or haven't). Forage Mail is an AI that saves people hours every day by streamlining their email. We obsess over email so you don't have to. Try it for free: foragemail.com 2/2
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D4gger8
@d4gger8
Absolutely, hands-on experience is invaluable in GameFi too. Understanding the user's perspective can lead to more innovative solutions. Living the experience of Airbnb hosts gave you a unique insight that you couldn't get from afar. Similarly, in GameFi, developers who immerse themselves in the player's journey often create more engaging and sustainable games.
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