iTechGuides is reader-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Learn more
Building BitVoices led B Donald Harris to rethink a basic product question: not which social features to add, but what people should be able to accomplish by being part of the community. In his account, operating the software helped reveal that distinction—alongside, not instead of, requirements, conversations, and research.
Why familiar social features stopped answering the important question
Harris says BitVoices grew from NotableBIT’s mission to amplify Black excellence in tech. He initially treated an online community as a social platform and built familiar components: profiles, posts, comments, reactions, follows, notifications, videos, news, and a feed.
Over time, he spent effort curating articles that, as he describes it, few people read. The essay gives no readership figures. More importantly, adding content or features did not settle the question he kept returning to: What was BitVoices actually supposed to be, and what should a builder be able to accomplish by joining it?
Those questions shifted the focus from the inventory of a social network to the value the product was meant to create. Harris says conversations, looking at other platforms, and observing BitVoices in use all contributed to his reconsideration.
#1 Best Overall
How the product’s center of gravity shifted
Harris describes Builder HQ as a move away from organizing the experience primarily around a feed and toward builders: what they are making, what they need, what they can offer, what needs attention, and who might help. The change was not a rejection of social features; it was a change in what those features were for.
He describes Hubs organized around shared interests, technologies, business models, or geography, with examples such as AI Builders, SaaS Builders, and Tulsa Builders. In this framing, people can gather around a relevant context rather than relying on a general-purpose feed to define the community.
Posts, comments, reactions, articles, and connections still have a role. They support communication and relationships; they are not, on their own, the purpose of the community. Harris summarizes his view as “Community is culture, not features.” That is his interpretation of BitVoices, not a measured rule about every online community.
What’s actually slowing this PC down?
Pick the symptom - the matching free tool is one click away.
What changed in the product framing
| Question | Earlier framing Harris describes | Later framing Harris describes |
|---|---|---|
| What organizes the experience? | A social network and its familiar features | Builders, their needs, and their relationships |
| What is the feed for? | A central place for content and activity | One supporting mechanism among others |
| What value should participation create? | Posting and consuming content | Finding help, collaboration, accountability, and connection |
| Where can product insight come from? | Requirements, conversations, and research before implementation | Those inputs plus building, operating, and observing the software |
This is a conceptual contrast drawn from Harris’s essay, not a head-to-head evaluation. He reports no comparative engagement, retention, or business results for the two approaches.
How building and operating software can extend discovery
Product plans, conversations, and research can clarify what people say they need. Harris’s account adds another possible source of information: the working product itself. Once software exists and people encounter it, a builder can observe what gets used, where friction appears, and whether the product’s structure supports the intended activity.
That does not mean implementation automatically reveals the right answer. It means building enough to observe a real product can surface questions that a plan or mockup did not. For BitVoices, Harris says that curating content and watching the live product contributed to his doubts about a feed-centered definition of community.
Rank #4
He closes with a metaphor: “Requirements, conversations and research can tell me a lot about what software should be, but sometimes I also need to build enough of it to hear what the software has to say.” He explicitly does not mean that software has a literal opinion. The point is that implementation and use can provide evidence to consider alongside earlier discovery work.
Recommended Free Tools
What this story does—and does not—establish
Harris’s essay is a first-person account of how he reconsidered BitVoices. It contains no named statistical findings or quantified outcomes, and it does not independently establish how users behaved or whether the shift improved the product’s results. The reported fact that few people read the curated news is not accompanied by a count.
Best Value
The useful takeaway is therefore about a way to frame discovery, not proof that one product structure outperforms another: start with what members should be able to do, then treat observations from the working product as one input that may refine the answer. Harris does not argue for skipping requirements, conversations, or research; he describes implementation as an additional source of learning.
Source: B Donald Harris, “What Building a Social Platform Taught Me About Software Discovery,” DEV Community. The page displays “Posted on Sep 27,” but the retrieved text does not establish a publication year.
Quick Recap
Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon at the time of purchase will apply.
