Glint started as a spreadsheet. I was tired of getting surprised by renewals, so I listed every subscription I could remember — and immediately realised I'd forgotten four of them. That gap, between what we think we pay and what we actually pay, became the whole product.
Shipping the ugly first version
The first build was deliberately embarrassing: a single screen, manual entry, no auth. But it answered the one question that mattered — “what's my real yearly total?” — and that was enough for people to keep it open.
If the ugly version isn't useful, the polished version won't be either.
What users actually asked for
Nobody asked for charts. They asked for one thing: a heads-up before the charge, not a report after it. So renewal reminders became the headline feature, and the dashboard became secondary.
Pricing is a product feature
It felt strange charging for an app that helps you spend less — until I framed it as a fraction of what it saves. The first 50 beta testers shaped that pricing in public, and it stuck.