What 508 Users Taught a Tiny Startup About Its Own Product
Last month, 508 people used Proxyceptor for the first time. We're a small team, so that number means a lot to us. But the numbers that taught us the most weren't the flattering ones. This post walks through our first 30 days of data from Microsoft Clarity , what surprised us, and what we're fixing next. The setup Clarity is free, privacy-friendly, and takes about five minutes to install. It gives…
Proxyceptor, a small startup, welcomed its first 508 users last month – a significant milestone for a team of limited size. However, the most enlightening insights came not from these flattering numbers, but from 30 days of data collected via Microsoft Clarity, a free, privacy-friendly analytics tool.
Clarity provided session recordings, heatmaps, and behavior signals, including rage clicks and dead clicks, without sampling data. This choice proved beneficial for Proxyceptor, an early-stage product without an analytics budget.
Key metrics from the first 30 days include 508 unique users, 623 total sessions, 534 sessions from new users (85.7%), and 89 sessions from returning users (14.3%). Most notably, 38% of users made 38 sessions each, indicating a strong return.
Geographically, India accounted for 82.15% of sessions (511), followed by the US (11.58%, 72), and other regions (6.27%, 39). Major cities included Mumbai, Meerut, Surat, Ludhiana, and Chandigarh. However, some US sessions originated from Ashburn, Virginia, a major data center region, which may include bots or automated traffic.
Performance-wise, Proxyceptor scored an 80/100 across 302 pageviews, with Core Web Vital scores of Good for Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) at 2.4s, Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) at 0.001, and a Needs Improvement rating for Interaction to Next Paint (INP) at 320ms. The 200ms threshold was not met, indicating interaction slowness.
The high dead click rate (36.17%) and rage clicks (7.23%) suggest design issues or bugs, pointing to a list of improvements. Quick backs (12.70%) also provide insights into first impressions.
Moving forward, Proxyceptor plans to watch recordings of sessions with high dead clicks and rage clicks, reduce INP below 200ms, filter out probable bot traffic, and analyze common traits among returning users. The takeaway for other small teams is to instrument early, utilize free tools like Clarity to see real user behavior, and not to ignore the uncomfortable metrics. The initial 508 users are merely a starting point for future growth, with a goal of reaching 5,000 users.
Written by urgent.news from Dev.to's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
