A friend of mine—CTO at BiteSpeed, a Sequoia-backed SaaS company—was curious about crypto with fairly basic understanding of crypto, but a very good understanding of web2 tech and UX.
I asked him to explore polkadot and give me unfiltered feedback on the onboarding experience, community, and developer tooling.
Below is the transcript of my 15-20min conversation with him - A brutally honest one that exposed what Polkadot looks like to a sharp, no-bullshit builder from the outside.
From confusing community links to marketing that feels more like vaporware than value, this gave me a lot to think about and hopefully can help others here too.
I’ve transcribed the whole thing here. Would love to hear thoughts — especially from those building dev onboarding, documentation, or community infra.
NOTE: There may be a few inaccuracies in the transcript because it was transcripted and translated using AI tools.
Transcript:
Guest: Yeah, mostly when I sit down properly with a clear mind, I think I’ll write things down, but here’s the thing—my experience with the community had two main aspects. One, understanding how Polkadot is actually different from other blockchains.
I mean, on the surface I know—like proof of stake and all that—but these days only Bitcoin is really using its own unique model. People treat Bitcoin as this separate, independent thing.
After that, Ethereum is the dominant one, and everyone’s trying to compete with it. Solana is one such competitive contender.
So yeah, the landscape is pretty much that. Now, my main question is: why does Polkadot even exist? Why should I use it?
Sure, it’s proof of stake, but there are other proof of stake networks too. There must be differences, but I couldn’t really find them.
I think they’ve made some videos, but they come off feeling more like scams than anything informative.
Me: It feels like Cardano—heavy on hype but lacking substance—even though Polkadot might actually have the most substance.
Guest: It’s like they’re just overcompensating for the lack of substance.
Basically, when you don’t have anything real to show, you talk fancy. That’s what it feels like. And that part didn’t help me at all.
Second, I wanted to see what’s going on in the community. Even there, it was a mess. The “Community” tab has lots of links that don’t work properly.
Okay. The main site itself had broken links. Sometimes it would take 2–3 clicks to reach something, or you’d click once and get redirected after 8–10 seconds.
I think this was when I was checking the community page. They’ve given social links like Discord and all, but it’s not clear where real discussions happen.
I wanted something like a “town hall”—but to be fair, I did find it in about 10 minutes. But still, you had to know that it exists, or you’d never think to look.
It felt like a few people built the website, but it doesn’t feel like a community I’d want to be a part of. It felt like those abandoned college projects where someone made a website and just left it.
And then on the forum, even the introduction feels weird—like it’s designed for networking or something. When you join, you get a start page with rules and all.
There’s a link there on how to get started. It says: click the sign-up button, enter email/password, and you’ll have an account. Like, duh?
Me: They assumed you wouldn’t know how to sign up.
Guest: I don’t know what they were thinking, but they clearly expected people to magically understand what Polkadot is.
There’s a Notion doc too. That doc links you in circles—back to the same instructions on the forum.
That doc had a link like, “If you’re a beginner, go through these instructions,” and it just sent me back to the page showing how to make an account. Instead of telling me what Polkadot is or how to use it.
So then I returned to the forum, thinking maybe there’d be more useful info—but it was the same stuff copied over from Notion. So I wondered why the link even existed.
And after creating an account, if you go to a page that tells you how to create an account—it makes no sense.
And the “How to get started” instructions won’t go away. At least for me, they were stuck for 5–10 minutes. I’d open a discussion, and the same giant instruction panel would be there.
It took me a couple minutes to figure out I needed to scroll halfway down the page to actually read anything else. Even clicking the close button didn’t work.
I expected a “Got it” button or something, but it was just everywhere, all the time. Made it super hard to do anything.
So yeah, there’s a real problem. People won’t stick around.
Also, if you’re making a “getting started” guide, then tell me why I should care about Polkadot. Okay, you told me to be respectful and all—that’s important—but what’s different about this vs. other blockchains?
There was no info on the PolkaAssembly or how to participate.
I felt like if you’re building your own forums and tools, it should feel more connected—but Assembly felt like it existed in a separate universe.
Why isn’t PolkaAssembly directly linked on the main site?
I only knew about it because you told me. It’s buried deep. Unless you’re already involved, you’d never find it.
The community page should clearly list things like “here’s where to see discussions,” not just some random doubts and links. It felt like “here’s a page, go find things yourself.”
Even the main website felt very corporate. Just “this is what it is”—no explanation of why I should care.
Me: That’s the biggest issue. If someone isn’t already curious or incentivized, your website does nothing for them.
Guest: It never answers: “Why should I give a f***?” Just some videos that might look cool, but could be for any product.
They’re generic as hell—like AI-generated videos with no depth. You could slap any logo on them—like Royal Stag or IPL—and it’d still work.
So yeah, it didn’t make much sense. And when I checked the Assembly forum, the first tabs were about spending—grants and funding.
I didn’t even ask for that. It just felt like, “Here’s where you come to grab money.” It gave off a very materialistic, capitalist vibe.
I’m sure there’s more to it—I didn’t explore deeply—but the first impression was: people are here to take money.
That’s all. That’s what it looked like.
And I only knew about the grants because you told me they exist.
Me: And you’re someone who’s into cool tech. You actually want to explore.
But even you feel like there’s nothing substantial. And the “getting started” section just dumps you into a community where not much is happening.
Guest: As a developer, I want to see: What are you actually building? Why are you building it? And how do I interact with it?
Ideally, within 5–15 minutes, I should be able to do something on the blockchain. That’s when I’d think, “Okay, this is easy enough, I can do this.”
And if your “why” was compelling, then I’d go deeper.
Me: You know what’s funny? They removed that one good video they had—where Gav spins up a blockchain on a new laptop in 15 minutes using Substrate.
Guest: That video was a good selling point. Just showing that it’s easy to set up could bring people in.
Most new people don’t have loyalty to any blockchain. Just knowing that this one is easy is enough to convince them.
And for people to develop on your ecosystem, onboarding is critical.
Me: And then there’s JAM—it’s basically like a decentralized computer, right?
But there’s no mention of it anywhere. Even though that’s a big deal.
Guest: Shouldn’t that be the entire focus of your marketing right now?
Like “This is coming. Get ready.” Tell me how to get ready!
There’s no roadmap, nothing clearly saying what the future is or why it matters.
Polkadot is a usable product. What you need is a clear conversion funnel and proper guides.
You need to tell people what to build. Don’t expect people to connect the dots themselves.
Like Amazon has AWS partners who will literally build things for clients.
They’ll talk to a business, understand their needs, and build a free proof-of-concept on AWS. And if it works, the client stays.
It’s super sticky.
Technically people could move to GCP or something, but they usually don’t…
Me: On Polkadot, it’s the opposite. If you build something here, it’s hard to leave—but also hard to start.
Guest: So yeah, it makes sense to get businesses in, have developers build for them, and fund it with grants.
For the business, it’s free. They get a working product.
Meanwhile, developers are getting paid to build real stuff.
Right now, you’re giving out grants, but they’re not useful. Give them to people who’ll build actual things.
Me: You could give a college student in India a $150k grant, and they’d build a better experience than what you have now.
This is just a waste of resources and money.
There’s no clear direction on what you want people to do.
Guest: Even if it’s just “build something,” you need to show them what to build.
Don’t just say “here’s our platform, go wild.” That doesn’t work.
Even something simple like a guitar—everyone knows what it does. But if someone sees an amplifier with knobs and no guidance, they’re lost.
Same with Polkadot—it’s like here’s an advanced tool, now figure it out.
No one will.
Your site is like saying: “Here’s a thumb drive, it will change the world,” but without telling me what it even does.
You could put those videos on a random plant website and it’d still work—“We’ve made the world’s best plants.”
Because you’re blind to the actual needs of your users.
So, what do you guys think about this?
- Is there anything specific that you agree/disagree with?
- What do you think are the main 3 reasons that led to this bad UX?
- Do you think distractive is doing a good job with their marketing copies and landing pages?
- Why have we been unable to address these? How can we fix this?
heh