Afraid to launch
I finished my first MVP (SaaS) 1 week ago, but still afraid to launch and not sure why. First time launching is just scary to me, dont know how to launch really. Just send out emails to my potential customers and post on some of the subreddits to protome the product ? Dont really know why i am afraid so much of this big jump. Did you face similar problems when launching your first side project ? Care to share some advice on thi specific problem ? Thanks in advance
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If you don't want to blast it to your whole list, try launching to a select few people. That's what we did.
"The earth will not stop turning"
Ship it!
There is 99% chance nothing happens 😆
Launching is the only way to make your product a reality.
The secret is keep working on your product and spend half of your time on marketing and user acquisition.
It is OK to be scared but that shouldn't stop you. Producthunt is a good start to launch.
ProductHunt launch is a big deal tho so shouldn't waste it. For example, a lot of YCombinator companies only launch on PH post-demo day
If OP is scared, just soft launch in one of the communities here and ask for feedback
Or join the reddit r/startups discord and soft launch there too
I am pretty sure launching on PH can be done multiple times. So doing it now wouldn't prevent him from doing it again in the future.
I'm also sure I have heard YC mentors and speakers downplay launching as anything big enough to keep planning over and over.
There is a whole video on this on Startup School - https://youtu.be/3xU050kMbHM. So If YC companies launch after demo day, the reason will not be "getting ready enough to do it big".
You can only launch a 2nd time if there are significant updates.
YC recommends launching over and over. That is true, do it anywhere but ProductHunt. They have rules that you must follow if you don't want to be banned from their platform forever.
Take for example Refinery (YC S20) that launched on ProductHunt recently: https://www.producthunt.com/posts/refinery-website-editor
This is the only launch the makers have done and it's been 2 years since their seed raise.
ABL - ALWAYS BE LAUNCHING. Don't think about a product launch as a static event or single point in time. The best products and founders are launching new things, features, and products all the time. Launch, Listen, Learn, Iterate, Launch.
I have a nice quote from a book (can't remember which one rn but think it might have been "The courage to be disliked" lol) and it goes something like this:
"You're the only one that's concerned with how you look".
Trust me nobody cares as much as you think they do about if you get it right all right but we think they do so we're scared to look bad or make the wrong decisions.
Truth is most of it is in our head and a launch in itself doesn't really mean anything it's just a start of a hopefully long and rewarding Journey towards whatever goals you might have.
You can also show and ship it here first, get some feedback and then move on to show it to your audience / customers / clients, we don't have much insight where you're actually at.
So in the wise words of Ronnie Coleman: "Ain't nothing to it but to do it" 💪🧐
It's normal. If it helps, just know that as soon as you launch, you will then be afraid of something else. Namely: how do I get paid users now???!!!
This never ends, so just launch and get on with it 🚀
And we're here to support you every step of the way 😉
Do you already have an audience in the loop?
They will be delighted that you fixed their most urgent problem.
Dont have an audiance,
At the start of the year i wrote an email to some local buisness and asked them if they want to speed up the process they had. (they were doing manual work and i can automate it ) . They said that they were ready to pay for a solution so i got to work. After 3 months of working on an mvp and finishing it 1 week ago. i am here now , being afraid to launch and write an email to them about the product, maybe i am more afraid of a failiure and nobody finding my produc useful.
If they don’t find it useful that is excellent opportunity for learning and to tune or pivot your product based on the feedback.
Showing them your product is always a win, wether they like it or not.
I finished my product 2 months ago and I still haven't launched because I'm too scared and I don't know why!
so just go for it, if you don't launch then your product will go for a waste so don't do that, just launch because you can be surprised with the results!
I wish you a lot of success
just launched in product hunt, thanks guys for the encouragement 😊 here is the link, if you would like to check it out! https://www.producthunt.com/posts/cost-friendly-flights
I'm planning to lunch soon too and freaking out in general but I'm preparing myself to ignore any failure and move on