Excited by the idea, I quickly put together a landing page to showcase the product and its planned features. I started reaching out to people online, gathering feedback, and trying to gauge interest.
That’s when reality hit me: only one person signed up for the newsletter. Just one. It was a painful but clear signal—I hadn’t validated the idea properly. I was building something I thought people needed, not something they actually wanted. That was my first major lesson.
Fast forward a bit, and during our usual Google Meet calls at work, I noticed something interesting. People weren’t happy with Google Meet. They were missing features they loved from Zoom, better chat UI, reactions, replies, persisted messages, transcriptions, and more. That was my cue. This time, instead of rushing to build a landing page, I built a simple prototype and got my team to use it. They loved it.
That prototype evolved into my new startup, GM-Pro. a Chrome Extension that enhances Google Meet with features like a better chat UI, reactions, persisted messages, transcriptions, and many more improvements. If you want to try it, you can install the extension from the Chrome Store.
This experience was a complete shift from my first startup. I had validation before investing too much time. I had real users giving me real feedback. Now, I’m focusing on refining and expanding this product, knowing there’s actual demand for it.
Lesson learned: don’t just assume a problem exists—make sure people actually care about solving it before you build. Validation first, then execution.
Has anyone else gone through a similar startup failure? How did you pivot?
