The 20% Rule: Why Users Ignore Most of Your App (And That's Okay)

08/10/2025 14 min Temporada 1 Episodio 39

Listen "The 20% Rule: Why Users Ignore Most of Your App (And That's Okay)"

Episode Synopsis

Ibrahim Diallo uncovers the secret law of software: every user only cares about a tiny slice of your application, and it's a different slice for everyone.- The childhood discovery that Excel's only purpose was copying tables into Word- How **Microsoft's "bloat" is someone else's vital feature- Why ignoring the 1% created a $10M opportunity for a search engine startup- The Figma & Notion playbook for beating giants by serving a neglected niche- How VS Code and Slack mastered the art of letting users build their own perfect toolA liberating guide to building software that users love, by finally accepting that they will ignore 80% of it."In my mind, the only reason Excel existed was to copy and paste tables into Word.""Most users will only ever use about 20% of your application's features, but each user uses a *different* 20%.""It's not just that users don't use the other 80%, they may actively resent it for getting in the way of their 20%.""The goal isn't to build a product that does everything for everyone. That's how you end up with bloated software that frustrates more users than it delights.""The goal is to build a product that does the right thing for *each* user, even if that means accepting that they'll ignore most of what you've built."