New to Retell & Learning in Public: A Beginner’s Journey + Feature Ideas
Hi Retell community! I’m based in Holland and just starting to build my first voice AI business for local service industries. I’m completely new to this space, and I wanted to share my experience so far—both as feedback and to see if other beginners are on a similar path.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
MY STARTING POINT
I used Perplexity to research whether Retell was the right choice for the Dutch market. The response was incredibly thorough and convinced me to commit. I’m all in now, but the journey from “decision made” to “working agent” has been humbling.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
WHAT I’M LEARNING (THE HARD WAY)
MY PROMPT JOURNEY
I created my first agent prompt thinking it would be straightforward. Turns out, it’s not. My agent often glitches, repeats itself, and doesn’t follow instructions consistently.
Here’s what I realized: This isn’t Retell’s fault—it’s mine. I don’t know how to write good prompts yet. I’m learning as I go, iterating, testing, failing, and improving. That’s exactly what I expected when diving into something new.
But it also got me thinking: there are probably hundreds of other beginners stuck in this same loop right now, trying to figure out prompt engineering in a vacuum.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
FEATURE IDEAS THAT COULD HELP
(AND ATTRACT MORE USERS LIKE ME)
I’m not complaining about Retell—I’m genuinely trying to help build something better here.
There are plenty of voice AI prompt generators and builders out there, but I honestly think people will trust it more if it comes from the source. From my limited experience with the many GPTs across different platforms, they can be helpful to a point, but often they make things worse. I know AI is unpredictable and my prompting isn’t great, which is why I’m looking for a prompt generator that can fix poor prompts for both beginners and professionals who struggle with creating or refining them.
#1 PROMPT BUILDER WIZARD
A step-by-step guided builder for beginners:
• “What is your agent’s job?” (receptionist, sales, support, etc.)
• “What industry?” (HVAC, dental, restaurant, etc.)
• Auto-generates a starter prompt
• Shows best practices for different use cases
Why it matters: Beginners like me don’t know we’re supposed to be specific, include fallback instructions, or define personality. A wizard cuts the learning curve from months to days.
#2 PROMPT FIXER / DEBUG TOOL
When my agent glitches or repeats itself, I have no way to diagnose why.
What I need: A simple tool that says:
• “Your prompt mentions X, but your agent keeps Y—try removing conflicting instructions”
• “Agents tend to repeat when you don’t define turn limits—here’s a fix”
• Call-by-call feedback: “On this call, your agent could have handled interruptions better by…”
#3 PROMPT REFINER (LEARNING FROM REAL CALLS)
Let me upload a call transcript and say: “My agent did X, but I wanted it to do Y. Fix the prompt.”
The tool would:
• Analyze what went wrong
• Suggest specific prompt changes
• Show before/after examples
• Let me test the new version immediately
#4 SAFE TESTING SPACE (THIS IS CRITICAL)
Right now, every test is a production test. I’m burning minutes, cluttering call history, and risking bad demos.
What would change everything: A free sandbox where:
• I can test unlimited agents without charges
• Test calls don’t show up in call history
• I can try 10 versions of a prompt in 20 minutes without cost
• Once I’m confident, I deploy to production
This alone would make me 10x more willing to experiment and iterate.
#5 COMMUNITY PROMPT LIBRARY
Let me browse prompts other Retell users have created for similar industries:
• “HVAC Appointment Scheduler” (rated 4.8★)
• “Dental Intake Agent” (rated 4.6★)
• “Restaurant Reservation Assistant” (rated 4.5★)
I don’t need to clone them exactly, but seeing how others structure prompts would accelerate my learning by weeks.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
WHY I’M SHARING THIS
I could’ve quit when my first prompt didn’t work. Instead, I decided: This is a skill I need to master, and I’m going to stick with Retell to do it.
But I also know that most beginners will quit. They’ll think “Retell is too hard” and switch to something simpler. And that’s a loss for everyone—for them (they miss out on Retell’s superior voice quality) and for Retell (you lose potential long-term power users).
The features I’m suggesting aren’t about coddling beginners. They’re about:
✓ Removing unnecessary friction in the learning process
✓ Turning solo trial-and-error into community learning
✓ Attracting founders like me who are genuinely committed but need guidance
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
MY COMMITMENT
I’m focusing on one thing at a time so I don’t get overwhelmed. Right now, I’m dedicating myself to mastering Retell’s prompt engineering and building one solid agent for my first client.
Once I nail that, I’ll share what I learn back here—call transcripts, prompt iterations, what worked, what didn’t. I want to help other beginners avoid the mistakes I’m making.
I’ve finally found something I want to dedicate myself to: building with Retell and helping make this community stronger. Even if it takes longer than I expected, even if my first prompts are rough, I’m not backing down.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
QUESTIONS FOR THE COMMUNITY
Beginners: Are you struggling with prompt engineering too? How are you learning? What’s helping you?
Experienced users: What would’ve made your early days with Retell easier? What do you wish existed?
Retell team: Would any of these features (especially the sandbox) help you attract more users like me who want to build seriously but need on-ramps?
I’m genuinely here to contribute, learn, and grow with this platform. Thanks for reading!
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
TL;DR 
I’m a beginner learning Retell in public. My prompts are rough, but I’m committed to improving. I think features like a prompt builder, sandbox testing, and community library could unlock a whole new wave of founders who want to build seriously but need guidance. I’m staying, learning, and planning to share what I learn back here.`