Why empty templates fail — and what to ship instead
A blank database is not a product. Sample data, relations, and a first dashboard are what make a template usable in ten minutes.
The fastest way to kill a template sale is a screenshot of empty tables. Buyers cannot imagine their life inside a skeleton — they can only imagine more setup work.
Ship the shape, not the void
Every database needs five sample rows that demonstrate the intended use: a completed item, an in-progress item, an edge case, a linked parent, and a blocked item. That tiny cast teaches the schema faster than any documentation paragraph.
Lead with the dashboard
The first page after duplicate should answer a real question — "what am I shipping this week?" — not introduce a taxonomy. Taxonomy can live on page two.
One opinionated default
Pick a default status set, a default priority model, and a default review cadence. Power users will fork it. Everyone else will just start working.
That is the bar we hold ourselves to on every listing in the catalog: real sample data, a working home dashboard, and a setup guide that takes under 15 minutes.