Three months ago I dropped a comment about my side project in a Reddit thread about Partiful alternatives. People started replying with what they actually needed. Three-state RSVP. Plus-ones. Comments. Guest lists. Deadlines for replies.

Most of it was already somewhere on my loooong todo-list (that keeps getting longer as feature ideas come to mind). What the thread gave me was the order. I stopped guessing what to build next and just shipped whatever someone had asked for that week, and that turned out to be the best prioritisation I've ever had.

What surprised me is what came back. Someone even sent me a "You're freakin legendary!" over a feature that took me an afternoon. That kind of thing carries you through a lot of evenings.

Then there's the part I still think about. The leader in my space is genuinely excellent, better than me at almost everything. But the comments that stuck were about wanting an alternative "not made by Palantir employees". Privacy-conscious. Not asking for a phone number or a password just to RSVP. Nobody writes that in a competitive analysis. People were leaving a better product over who was behind it and what happens to their data, and I would never have guessed that from a feature comparison.

A few people have sent me money for something that has never charged anyone. One of them even asked how to donate before there was a way to do it, so I went and created the Stripe account.

Bugs? A few. Rough feedback? Not once. By the time something broke there was a relationship, and people report things kindly when they feel like they're part of it.

So yes, the over-sharers on Twitter, and here on Uneed, are right. They're sharing the life of a product and what it's like doing this alone, and that's what makes strangers care enough to tell you what's broken. Reading what other makers post here, I find the same thing. See you around after the launches.

👋 Hey Uneed,

Today i'm launching RealEvents

I've been organizing events for years, private and professional, and I never found a tool I actually liked. The good ones make your guests create an account to say yes to a party. The pretty ones want a subscription for an event that's free. Some want a phone number for no reason I could explain to anyone.

So I built the one I wanted: you create an event page in 10 seconds, you get a private link to manage it and a public link to share. Your guests RSVP with just a name. Email only if they're actually coming. No app, no account, no phone number, nothing sold to anyone, EU-hosted, GDPR by default.

What I didn't expect is where it went next. I posted about it on a Reddit thread about Partiful alternatives, and people started telling me what was missing. Three-state RSVP came from there. Plus-ones came from there. Comments, guest lists, RSVP deadlines, messaging everyone who replied: all from that thread. Most of this roadmap was written by users, not by me.

Since then: more than 500 events created and over 3,000 RSVPs, from New York to Wrocław. Still a side project, still just me. And it's free for free events.
https://realevents.co

I'll be around all day, ask me anything.

Yann 🙏