The early dua.com story began with an idea about community and changed as we learned.
In this archived TikTok post, I described an idea that started in 2011, became Albanianfriends.com in 2013 and took the dua.com name in 2019. I also looked back at the decision to broaden the audience in 2023, following interest from people in other countries.
That is the story as I told it in this post. The caption also contains user counts, product details and a long-term ambition from that stage of the business. They should be read as historical statements, not as today’s figures or promises.
Read the early dua.com story in context
The original need I described was connection among Albanians, including people living away from their home countries. Before there was a wider audience, there was a particular community and a reason to help its members find each other.
For someone starting a project, that offers a useful question: whose problem do you understand closely enough to explain without a presentation? Name the people, the difficulty and the connection you want to make possible.
Let the next direction earn its place
In the caption, requests from other countries were part of the reason for changing direction. A larger possible audience alone is not the same as a reason to serve it. What are people asking for, and what would you need to change to help them well?
A founder’s story is built through such decisions. Looking back, keep the milestones clear and the context attached. The decisions make more sense when you can see what the business was trying to learn at that point.