Why Your Users Feel Alone (Even When You Have Millions)

On the latest episode of the Levels Podcast, Punit Jajodia shared an insight that stopped me in my tracks. Programiz has 6 million users on their website, over a million mobile app downloads, and 200,000 YouTube subscribers. By any measure, it's a thriving platform. But here's what Punit realized: to each individual user, the experience felt completely lonely.

This realization transformed how Programiz thinks about product development, gamification, and community. For B2C founders obsessed with growth metrics, it's a reminder that aggregate numbers can blind you to the actual user experience.

The Loneliness Paradox

When you're looking at dashboards showing millions of users, it's easy to imagine a bustling community. Punit and his team fell into the same trap.

"We have 6 million users on the website. And we see those numbers. And all the numbers you talked about, 1 million downloads, all of this. So this kind of spoils us in the sense that we see all this. We imagine all these heads, all these people on that. But to the one user on the app what is the experience? It's a lonely process. That user is completely alone."

Think about what this means in practice. Someone opens Programiz, works through a Python tutorial, writes some code, runs it, maybe succeeds or fails—and throughout that entire journey, they have no sense that thousands of other people are doing the same thing at the same moment. The experience is isolating.

"This was the insight that to that one user, for us, we see the numbers in aggregate, but we forget that to that particular user, that experience is completely lonely."

This isn't unique to coding education. Fitness apps, language learning platforms, productivity tools—so many B2C products create what Punit calls "lonely experiences" even while serving massive user bases.

Why Loneliness Matters

You might wonder: does it really matter if the experience feels solitary? People came to learn coding, not make friends.

But Punit argues this loneliness directly impacts the transformation you're trying to create in users' lives. When people learn in isolation, they're more likely to get stuck, lose motivation, and abandon the journey. They don't have anyone to celebrate wins with or commiserate over frustrations. There's no accountability, no shared struggle, no social proof that success is possible.

The broader principle here applies to any product trying to create behavior change. Whether it's learning a skill, building a habit, or achieving a goal, the research is clear: social connections dramatically improve outcomes. Yet most product teams optimize for individual user flows while ignoring the social dimension entirely.

The False Promise of Features

Programiz initially thought "interactive" meant giving users the ability to write and run code directly in the browser. That was their big innovation—no need to switch between a tutorial and a code editor.

"Interactive does not only mean that you're writing code and running it. So that was our definition of interactive in the beginning, but the insight was interactive should mean that you are coding with other people, you're learning to code with other people."

This reframe is crucial. Technical interactivity (user interacts with software) is completely different from social interactivity (user interacts with other users). The first is about removing friction; the second is about adding connection.

Building for Connection

Once Programiz understood the loneliness problem, they started redesigning their product around shared experiences. They added challenges where users could compete on coding problems. They built leaderboards to create visibility into what others were accomplishing. They launched a Discord community for real-time conversation.

"So we built kind of these challenges feature. We gave experience points to people who solve these challenges. We also did some campaigns where, you know, people who got certain experience points, we kind of reward them on all that. That took off."

The response validated their hypothesis. These features weren't just nice-to-haves—they fundamentally changed how users experienced the platform.

"So it was like, this is interesting, right? That means creating a space where people can see other people's faces, can interact with them. They can see where they are ahead or behind other people. So all these components seem to add a lot of value to that. And all these components seem to make coding a less lonely experience."

The Spotify Example

Punit offers a perfect analogy using Spotify. The app isn't just a music player—it's a social experience built around individual consumption.

"If you go to Spotify, you see people's playlists, Humans creating playlists, and you're like, this is a shared experience."

You're listening to music alone, but seeing that other humans curated these playlists transforms the experience. You're participating in something collective even during a solitary activity. The same principle applies to YouTube comments, podcast reviews, and even product testimonials.

"A lot of companies do that only on their like marketing side where they'll do testimonials, all of that, but that's not real. I want those people while I'm using your product, not just before I make that decision."

Designing Against Loneliness

So how do you actually solve this problem in your own product? Punit's approach centers on visibility and connection throughout the user journey.

First, make other users visible. This doesn't require building complex social networks. Even simple elements work: showing how many people are taking the same course, displaying recent achievements from other users, or creating leaderboards that contextualize progress.

Second, create spaces for interaction. Programiz now runs monthly challenges and maintains an active Discord where users discuss what they're building. They've also built a "wall of inspiration" where people can submit and showcase their projects.

"The idea is to do projects, do your own projects and submit them to the wall of inspiration and while you're building the project, if you ever feel lonely or if you want help, you go to the Discord community."

Third, shift from global to local. This is where many gamification efforts fail. A global leaderboard where you're user number 2,000,004 isn't motivating—it's demoralizing. Programiz learned this lesson and is now pivoting toward friend-based and school-based leaderboards.

"A global leaderboard can be overwhelming, right? I want to create a... You see all the biggest numbers. And what we realized is I should be able to create my own leaderboard with my friends."

The Philosophy Behind Gamification

This insight about loneliness reveals why so many gamification efforts fail. Teams add badges, points, and leaderboards because they see competitors doing it, but they miss the underlying purpose.

"Before you gamify your app or bring the community element to the app, just think deeply, not just in terms of badges and the carrots and sticks and the features, but really how is it going to contribute to the user's life. Just look at everything from the user's lens."

The question isn't "What gamification features should we build?" It's "How do we make this experience feel less lonely?" The features follow from the philosophy, not the other way around.

"I want to build a community is not the right way to approach it. We want to make whatever activity you want to promote a less lonely experience. I think that is a much better prompt to start with as you think of gamification."

Beyond Your Product

Interestingly, Punit sees this principle extending beyond product features into content and marketing. He imagines creators documenting their journey building projects with Programiz—a streak of daily progress updates that followers can engage with.

This transforms user engagement from a product problem into a holistic experience that spans platforms. The loneliness solution isn't just in your app—it's in the broader ecosystem you create around it.

Key Points

• Aggregate metrics hide individual user experiences—6 million users can each feel completely alone
• Loneliness directly impacts transformation and behavior change in your users
• "Interactive" should mean user-to-user connection, not just user-to-software interaction
• Simple visibility of other users dramatically changes how products feel
• Global leaderboards often fail because they're overwhelming—local and social leaderboards work better
• Gamification features should follow from understanding loneliness, not from copying competitors
• The solution extends beyond product into content, community, and the broader ecosystem

Listen to the full conversation to hear more about how Programiz is evolving their gamification strategy and building features that turn individual learning into shared experiences.