Expectations for launch
Hi everyone!
I'm planning to "launch" my product 1000 Pound Club (https://1000pound.com/) in a few days. I put launch in quotes because the site is already up, but I'm going to post it on ProductHunt, HackerNews, Reddit, etc. as my "official launch".
Just wanted to get a sense of what my expectations should be for this kind of launch.
I'm naturally a pretty pessimistic person, so I would be happy if I even got 10 people to click on my site from the launch. If I get 1 user that actually ends up using the product, that would be great.
I've setup Google Analytics and Hotjar on my site already and I'm pretty excited to see some numbers and watch some user recordings.
This is my first launch, so hoping things go well!
Have you launched like this before? Did you get any traction?
I would recommend you to see this video by Kathryn Minshew founder of The Muse on how to launch and get customer Kathryn Minshew, Acquiring Your First Users Out of Thin Air, The Lean Startup Conference 2013
She highlighted it in step by step and it is almost like a checklist.
The summary from the video is basically, if you just post and expecting people to care about you it not gonna work. Instead you need to talk to people on by one, talk with bloggers, journalist, dm people and a lot of other things to do.
Here way of "launching" is very different than how we commonly thing, which is I will post everywhere and cross my finger.
So posting on every channel does not increase the chance of success.
Alternatively you can check this article to understand the overall concept of how to acquire first few customer. Rules to acquiring Your First Users
Thanks for the resources! I’ll give them a watch/read
Best of luck for the launch! We preferred a softer launch, first on friends, then LinkedIn. We are now doing Reddit and later we will post here and ProductHunt. I don’t know which is better but we get views but not users. Keep your head up and persist because marketing is extremely difficult as an indiehacker 🥲
Sounds like my experience. I didn't really know how to do a "launch" so it was soft. Views but not users.
that sounds like a good plan! get friends to find the major flaws first. I had a few friends try out 1000 pound club, but I can’t wait to launch, so I’m going for it
Friends didn’t really find bugs. The surprising thing is that while the last two weeks they were testing I was thinking of things they could find and found bugs/ vulnerabilities myself. So if you ship to friends and give yourself a week off to just think about your product you could find things you would not otherwise
I wanted indiehackers and designers (my target user group) to roast my app freely in Twitter and got really good responds which mentions about the problems I've never thought before. You might wanna try something similar
I will be trying to for sure!
Good luck :)
Goodluck mate!
thanks!
I would love any tips or ideas you may have on how I can keep growing revenue. What has worked for your business that I should try? Do you see any quick wins based on my approach so far? I'm open to any and all suggestions!
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts. Thank you for considering helping me take Synapse Tech to the next level.
Let me know if you would like any other details on my business or progress.
I’ll let you know if/when I get there. Currently at $0 revenue 😁
Hope the best, prepare for the worst.
That means assume nothing will go right and you'll get 3 users. Then make a plan for THIS situation! Pull out a piece of paper and write one page document on how you would handle that.
Most noobie Entrepeneurs always make this mistake. They're too optimistic and get side-blinded when things don't go how they hoped they would go. (Me included; I learned the hard way like most)
Agreed! I’m pretty pessimistic about the success of these kind of projects, I mostly just want to get my reps in for now. That being said, I do really hope I get 1 user that uses my product consistently.
Good luck with your first launch, whatever the outcome, you'll have learned something new. ⚡
thank you! great mindset!
Hey good luck! I'll follow along here. I'm in the fitness space too and had no idea how to launch 😅
thank you! will definitely be posting more updates after launch!
And you mentioned being pessimistic. If you launch and get no viewers/ users, that's OK. The are still options afterwards, it might take a while but will be worth it.
Best of luck. I don't have much experience myself but launching a product is always exciting.
thanks! i’m excited, hope things go well!
Haven't launched yet but planning on it soon. My strategy so far was looking at other companies first launch and trying to emulate what they did. Also, the site looks pretty good simple, but easy to use.
yaa I found it very useful to just see what others are doing. I’m trying emulate levelsio a little bit. Thanks for the positive feedback and good luck with your launch!
I can't see the white letters on your website ... maybe you can change them to black :)
Best of luck to your site/project
Pedro
ohh thanks for the feedback! will look into this
I would say don't have too many expectations. Competition is fierce and it's really hard to make it as a solo founder and you have companies that launch products at the same time and have more support.
I'm launching appwatch today on Product Hunt (here in case you want to support me: https://www.producthunt.com/posts/chrome-extensions-database) and my strategy is the following:
The goal is to get a few users, gather feedback, improve, and launch again. If this is your expectation (and not getting 10M users overnight), that should do it :)
thanks for the tips! really good to hear the perspective of someone who’s done this multiple times
Didn't launched yet. But I was very happy when I first entered the 1000 Pound Club. Cool Idea!
you’re strong! 💪
Goodluck!
I'm rooting for you! @alexanderqchen
I feel you. I'm currently in the exact same position with my first side project.. Really don't know where to put my expectations.
After talking to people around me for the past few weeks, I would say that you need to believe in your product and keep going, whatever are the numbers when you'll "launch"! You built it for a reason, you know what problem you are answering, you'll find your users (just keep going and give it enough time).
Also, don't forget that by launching on platforms that are not specific to your target audience, the ratio between people who will read your post and those who will actually use it might seem a bit low. It's normal.
In any case enjoy this new adventure, and good job for reaching a launch, it's already a pretty big stage!
Go for it, Alex!
Hi Alex. I wish you a good luck on your launch. I think you can earn more than 1 end user:)
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