The most painful kind of churn isn’t about your product. It’s about your communication.
The Exit Interview That Changed Everything
A founder on Reddit recently shared something that stopped me cold.
He’d been watching his churn numbers climb for months. Like most of us, he assumed it was about pricing. Maybe competitors. Maybe the product just wasn’t good enough.
So he did something most founders never do: he personally emailed every single person who cancelled. No pitch. No attempt to win them back. Just one simple question:
“Hey [Name], sad to see you go! No hard feelings, but I’d be massively grateful if you could share the main reason you cancelled. A one-sentence reply would be super helpful for us.”
40% of people replied.
What they said wasn’t what he expected.
“I was expecting everyone to say ‘it’s too expensive,'” he wrote. “But the reality was completely different.”
The responses fell into four buckets:
1. It wasn’t the price—it was the pricing model.
Users with fluctuating needs hated the rigid per-seat structure.
2. They “graduated” from the tool.
Many used it for a one-time project. They didn’t need it anymore. Not a failure.
3. A key integration was missing.
A huge chunk wanted to connect with another tool, couldn’t, and left. Now their #1 priority.
4. They didn’t know about a feature they wanted.
That last one? That was the gut punch.
“This was the most painful one. Several users left because we were ‘missing’ a feature that we actually have, but it was buried in our UI.”
Read that again.
Users churned because they thought the product couldn’t do something it already did.
The Invisible Feature Problem
This isn’t a one-off story. It’s a pattern.
Scroll through any founder community—Reddit, Indie Hackers, Twitter—and you’ll find some version of this:
“Shipped a feature. Nobody noticed.”
“Spent 3 months building. Usage: 4%.”
“We had the feature. They just didn’t know.”
The product works. The code is solid. The feature solves a real problem.
But users? They have no idea it exists.
This creates a devastating loop:
1. You build something users want.
2. You ship it.
3. They don’t discover it.
4. They think you don’t have it.
5. They leave for a competitor who “has” it.
6. You watch them go, confused.
One commenter on that Reddit thread nailed it:
“The fact users bailed because they didn’t know you already had the feature is the gold here—that’s not churn, it’s a marketing and onboarding blindspot screaming to be patched.”
Not a product problem. A communication problem.
Why This Keeps Happening
If you’ve shipped a feature that went unnoticed, you probably did what everyone does:
– Sent a changelog email.
– Updated a “What’s New” page.
– Maybe posted on social media.
And then… nothing.
Here’s why these channels fail:
The Email Graveyard
The average email open rate hovers between 20-42%, depending on who you ask and what industry you’re in. But for changelog and product update emails specifically? It’s often much worse.
Why? Because your users didn’t sign up to read your release notes. They signed up to solve a problem. Your carefully written update is competing with 47 other unread emails—and losing.
Even if they open it, the click-through rate to actually engage with the new feature is often under 5%.
You’re shouting into a void that’s already full.
Wrong Time, Wrong Place
Here’s the fundamental issue: you’re telling users about a feature when they’re not using your product.
They’re in their inbox. They’re context-switching. They’re thinking about lunch or their next meeting—not your app.
By the time they actually log in—hours or days later—they’ve forgotten. The email is buried. The moment is gone.
A changelog page has the same problem. Who’s going to navigate to your “What’s New” section unprompted? Almost no one.
Speaking Developer, Not User
Many release notes read like commit messages:
“Improved performance of data export module”
Great. What does that mean for me? How does my life get better?
Users don’t care about modules. They care about outcomes. If they can’t immediately understand the benefit, they’ll skim past it—assuming they read it at all.
The Real Cost of Invisible Features
This isn’t just frustrating. It has real business consequences.
Churn You Could Prevent
That founder’s story isn’t unique. How many of your churned users left because they thought you were missing something you already built?
You’ll never know—unless you ask. But if his experience is any indication, the number is higher than zero.
Support Tickets for Features That Exist
Your support team has probably fielded this question: “Can you add the ability to…?”
And someone on your team has probably replied: “Actually, we already have that! Here’s how to find it…”
Every one of those tickets is a signal. The feature exists. The discoverability doesn’t.
Wasted Development Time
You built it. It works. Nobody uses it.
That’s weeks—sometimes months—of engineering time generating zero value. Not because the feature was wrong, but because no one knew it was there.
Lost Trust
When users discover features months after they launched, something shifts. They start wondering: what else have I been missing? What other value am I not getting?
It feels like you’ve been hiding things from them. Even if you weren’t.
What Actually Works
The fix isn’t writing better emails. It’s rethinking when and where you communicate.
Meet Users Where They Already Are
The best time to tell someone about a feature is when they’re already using your product.
They’re engaged. They’re in context. They’re paying attention.
In-app announcements consistently outperform email by 3-4x for feature adoption. Not because they’re more clever—because they’re better timed.
When a user logs in and sees “New: Export your data in one click,” they’re in the mindset to care. When they get that same message in an email at 9 AM while commuting, they’re not.
Make It Relevant
Don’t blast everyone with everything.
Show the export feature to users who actually export data. Announce the team collaboration update to accounts with multiple users.
Relevance isn’t just nice—it’s the difference between signal and noise. Generic announcements get ignored. Targeted ones get clicks.
Focus on Outcomes, Not Features
Instead of: “New dashboard filters available”
Try: “Find what you need in half the time—new filters just dropped”
Your users don’t care about filters. They care about saving time. Lead with what they get, not what you built.
Show, Don’t Just Tell
A 10-second GIF showing the feature in action beats three paragraphs of explanation.
Visual proof makes it real. It takes the feature from abstract (“we added filters”) to concrete (“oh, I can do that”).
The Founders Who Get This Right
Some companies have figured this out.
Notion delivers their “What’s New” inside the app, contextually. It’s brief, visual, and shows up when you’re already in product-mode.
Linear treats every update like a mini launch. Clean visuals, clear value prop, delivered in the product itself.
Slack writes release notes that sound human. They explain why things changed, not just what changed.
What do they have in common? They don’t rely on email alone. They bring the update to where users already are.
Before Your Next Release
Ask yourself:
– Can users discover this where they already are? (In-app beats email)
– Is it timed to when they’d care? (Context matters)
– Is it written for users, not developers? (Outcomes over technical details)
– Is there a visual? (Show the feature, don’t just describe it)
– Is it relevant to the right people? (Segment, don’t blast)
The Bottom Line
Your users can’t love what they don’t know exists.
Every feature you ship has two jobs: working correctly, and being discovered. Most teams nail the first and completely ignore the second.
That founder who emailed his churned users? He wasn’t stressing about competitors or pricing. His biggest problems were onboarding and feature discovery.
The gap between “shipped” and “noticed” is where great products go to die.
Close that gap—and you might just save your next user from leaving for a feature you already built.
Sources:
– Reddit r/SaaS: “I personally emailed every single user who churned last month”