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I’ve worked at 6 startups over the past 12 years, burned out frequently, and learned that launching early is key. AMA.

Hey indie hackers!

I've worked at a bunch of startups (~2 years each) and seen firsthand that each one makes the same mistake: they refuse to launch.

I've allowed this mistake to drain the motivation from every startup I've worked at. The source is simple: a deep, visceral fear of rejection.

Startup #1: Like all new founders, I thought the idea is what mattered. 🙄 The idea was amazing, but we refused to tell anyone about it. The idea wasn't even described on the homepage...

Startup #2: We had a "visionary" CEO who represented the target customer. Uh oh... 😬 He refused to let us launch before he thought the product was 100% done. The launch date kept being pushed back.

Startup #3: If the CTO tells his employees and customers that he has a product that works like ✨ magic, but it's continually "in development" and doesn’t work, then team morale with eventually crash.

Startup #4: Again: these "visionary" CEOs keep popping up! This "visionary" CEO insisted on building a complete product before talking to a single customer. The CEO... was me. (But, hey, it was my first foray into indie hacking, so yay! 🥳)

Startup #5: If you have an idea that will "revolutionize the future of work", you NEED to tell people about that idea. There's no compromise. You can't just show people the finished product and hope they go "WHOA!" 🤦‍♂️

Startup #6: This founder spent 3+ years talking to customers and validating market demand by providing value manually on a case-by-case basis. 🤩 Built the initial product using spreadsheets. Pre-validated ideas are so much easier!

I've been through A LOT of ups and downs over the last 12 years. And I've learned that startup employees get burned out because there's a lack of connection to the work they're doing.

The way to ensure a strong connection to your work is to just launch! Nothing big — a blog post, a twitter thread, a landing page — whatever! But you need to take the first step and put yourself out there so people know you're there!

It's basic:
🚫 Don't launch = no one knows
🚫 Don't explain what you're doing = no one understands
🚫 Don't tell people why you're excited about it = no one cares

There will be many failures along the way. You can read all about them, but you'll learn nothing.

The only way to learn and overcome your fear of rejection (and connect with your audience) is to launch and fail again and again until you realize it's not such a big deal!

So: LAUNCH! 🚀 And AMA! 💬

  1. 6

    Amen!

    I was listening to a podcast and someone referred to not launching as "Ugly baby syndrome". The fear of someone critiquing your baby scares you away from getting it out in the world.

    But in the end, it's a baby. It grows. It becomes more.

    After hearing this advice I set my launch date and launched a week later. Getting feedback from that point on has been where I've discovered the really valuable data.

    1. 1

      Hi! Never heard about the "Ugly baby syndrome." Thank you for mentioning it. Do you remember, by chance, the podcast name / episode?

      1. 1

        I'll try to remember and get back to you!

    2. 1

      Nice, that's awesome!

      Was the valuable data along the lines of something you expected — or totally unexpected?

      1. 2

        It wasn't necessarily the data I was hoping for, but it was good to know.

        Building everything myself, I thought everything was perfectly intuitive. Once I launched I learned that people had no idea where to go or what to do on my website, so I started fresh and changed the whole layout.

        For our app, Econus, we figured out the barriers that turned people off.

        It was hard because they were some big structural changes, but they were changes I would have just been putting off had I extended my launch day.

        1. 2

          Yeah, that always happens — what seems mind-bogglingly obvious to you gets lost in the users' eyes.

          I've learned after a long journey that anything you want the user to notice, you have to scream at the top of your lungs — i.e. put it front and center in caveman-style language.

          Not because they're stupid, but because the part of their brain that's browsing the internet is. They're just want to get a quick rush and move on to the next tab.

          1. 1

            Exactly! It's wild.

  2. 3

    What a roller-coaster of a story. What a trip on Startup #4.

    What product did you build for Startup #4?

    How have you personally overcome the fear of rejection? This is something I've struggled with in the past too, and still do to some extent.

    You've worked on a couple of projects for multiple years at a time—how do you decide what's worth giving years too? When do you decide to give up and retire a project or keep pushing?

    1. 1

      Hi Spencer, thanks for the excellent questions! 🙌

      Startup #4 was Artisfy (defunct now), a marketplace where anyone could hire freelance digital illustrators. I built it because I'd had some phenomenal experiences hiring illustrators myself (e.g. Rish meets Eeo & Maple and Mephie talk) and I wanted more people to be able to experience that.

      ---

      I've never quite overcome my fear of rejection. It's a pretty visceral fear. But I take solace in the fact that pretty much every time I've learned into it and pushed past it, the thing I ended up doing turned out much better than expected. Some of my most popular posts were things I was embarrassed of and afraid to post.

      Seeing that process of confronting and overcoming fear resolve fortuitously over and over again has given my rational mind more confidence and taught me that even though my fear is valid and worth respecting, it might occasionally be giving me a very inaccurate picture of the world.

      ---

      If you're working on something you don't enjoy, it makes sense to want to extract value from it at every moment. Most people do this with their jobs: convert labor into money. But the way I try to look at my projects is I'm doing the opposite: using potential money/value in exchange for doing something I truly enjoy.

      However, this perspective has been hurting me a bit lately, as I confront some things (sales, marketing, outreach, SEO) that I don't want to do and don't enjoy doing. So, that's been a challenge. Every time I venture out into those uncomfortable spaces, afterwards I always return to what I enjoy doing as a reward: being creative and launching unique solutions to difficult problems. I figure: as long as I stay motivated, I can stay in the game. But once I lose that spark, it won't matter if I have a bunch of sales or not.

      ---

      I decided to retire Artisfy after my research took me in a different direction. It was kind of a natural death. It just receded to the back of my mind and stayed there for a while, until I realized I was spending lots of $$$ hosting it. Then I converted the app into a non-functional static site and let it be. I'll probably always want to go back to it — but for now, it's resting :)

  3. 3

    How do you decide which feedback is valuable feedback, and which should be ignored (if any)...

    1. 4

      When you're small, just keep a tally of votes on each piece of feedback and work on the thing with the most votes. This will lead to more customer engagement and great testimonials & referrals, which will help you grow.

      When you're at a medium-sized company, talk to your Sales team or your Customer Service team. Figure out what Sales is telling people before they sign and make sure that's what they experience after they sign up. And do everything you can to empower your Customer Support team — give them workarounds, admin tools, workflow automation — anything that helps them scale to serving the most customers per rep. Then build their automations/workarounds into the product as they become the standard.

      When you're starting to get bigger and scaling up, there'll be so much feedback coming at you that it'll be impossible to categorize and prioritize it fast enough. Everything will seem like an emergency. A really good Product Manager will be able to handle it though: they'll put most things in the backlog (documenting them, but not prioritizing them), lean heavily on customer support to find workarounds for customers, and will make sure your company continues to innovate by focusing on high-level, strategic projects (and not just one-off bug fixes).

      At the end of the day, you need to find a way to focus on what's going to make your company more valuable (and bring in more money). So, if you have a high-value customer that won't sign until you build a feature, write that feature into their contract and get them to sign before you build it. And, on the flip side, if there's a segment of the market that doesn't pay your company that much, but makes a lot of requests, ask them if they'd upgrade to a more expensive plan in order to get that feature. If a large segment of this market agrees, then build an MVP of that feature and get them to upgrade.

  4. 3

    Hey David, I love the idea of "just launching" and try to practice it as much as possible. But sometimes the initial reaction can be tough to handle. Can you share any tips on:

    1. Dealing with negative feedback from a launch
    2. How to identify constructive feedback
    3. How to iterate based on constructive feedback

    Love your work, and thanks for doing this AMA!

    1. 1

      Dealing with negative feedback from a launch

      Think about how you browse the internet — visiting one site after another and only posting comments or sending chat requests when something goes wrong or you disagree.

      What would it take for you to care about something new — even with all you have on your plate already? Other people aren't different — their default mode is just browsing and discarding anything that doesn't fit their expectations.

      The key is to either break through their malaise or seek out those people who are open to caring about something new. And both of those are hard to do.

      How to identify constructive feedback

      I touched on this in another comment, but I'll talk about it more.

      I started my career doing just user testing (watching people use my designs), switched my focus to user research (learning about the market as a whole), and then realized what I really wanted to know was about my customers' whole lives.

      You can't really know if a product is valuable in a vacuum — you need to know what prompts people to use it, when they're most likely to use it, what they're doing beforehand, what their boss thinks about it, how much they're willing to invest in learning it, and why it's ultimately valuable to them.

      I've built a lot of products for people that needed them — but they didn't have the time or money or patience or permission from their bosses to actually use them. So, those products flopped. If you don't know the context of your users' lives, it's a lot harder to build something that a) they can't live without and b) they'll actually use regularly.

      How to iterate based on constructive feedback

      1. Find out as much as you can about the needs of your customers
      2. Design the ideal solution that would take 10+ weeks of work to implement
      3. Cut out everything from the solution (75% of it) except for the essentials
      4. Ship it! (In 4 weeks or less)

      If the solution you made doesn't fulfill the need, learn and iterate. If it satisfies 90% of your customers 90% of the time, move onto the next project!

      1. 2

        This is great advice, thanks so much for the detailed response! I feel like your are taking The Mom Test to level 2 – explaining how to implement all of those ideas once you've finally found something worth diving into.

        1. Cut out everything from the solution (75% of it) except for the essentials

        This is my favorite thing I've seen on the internet in a while. LOVE THIS!

  5. 2

    Wonderful to see you answering so many questions so thoughtfully, David! No question for you here, just wanted to drop a message to show my appreciation to you 🧡

    1. 1

      Thank you James, much appreciated!

  6. 2

    That's a great reflection, David. How long were you working in each of the startups & in those that couldn't make it, when did they realize it so ?

    1. 1

      I worked at some for 3-4 years and a couple for about a year.

      Half of the startups I worked at didn't make it 🙁

      There's this cycle you get into that's exhausting:

      "We need to tell more people!"
      ⬇️
      Delay for a while because you're afraid
      ⬇️
      Finally do a press release/blog post/launch after A TON of work
      ⬇️
      Launch doesn't go as expected, you only get a few users
      ⬇️
      Be depressed because the effort didn't seem worth it
      ⬇️
      Start over from Step 1

      If you go through this process 2-3 times and you still have 0 real users, it can be incredibly demoralizing.

      I think the secret is to find some way to do it 20-30 times in quick succession though. If that means you have to call up random people and launch to them, do that. Or if it means you have to build an app within a company for only that company, do that!

      Any situation that can help you iterate quickly (i.e. launch & improve & launch again) is what's going to lead to ultimate success.

  7. 2

    A big launch can be tough on any team. Startup teams are usually spread quite thin and overworked, so the bigger the launch, the more the pressure and the entire thing is bound to hit one or two speed bumps. Product doesn't need to be perfect, just functional enough to validate what everyone has been working towards. Clearly outlining what success looks like every step of the way will take something stressful and turn it into a morale boost for the team, even if a wheel comes off midway through launch.

    Great article David, and thanks for posting this. It's very unlikely that anyone sees the vision for the problem you are trying to solve as clearly as you, so just get it out there and get going (and most importantly take care of the team trying to help you make this a success).

    1. 1

      Absolutely — the team's morale is essential and you've gotta treat the people working with you right.

      I don't claim to have all the answers, but I do know that the majority of the startups I've worked at have suffered from a lack of launching — not a surfeit.

  8. 2

    Hey David, thanks for sharing what you learned! If you have another chance to join the 7th startup, how will you evaluate its culture to make sure it's a good fit for you, and it launches fast? 😅

    1. 4

      Is that an invite to join Lonely Dev Inc? 🥺

      I have high expectations for the next place I work, but the most important thing is that the team is honest, caring, and non-judgmental. I can work through almost any problem with a good team.

      Also, the world seems to be undergoing a major, generational shift right now — crypto, global warming, worldwide pandemic, remote work, old media dying, the metaverse, automation taking over, AI on the horizon, and we're in the midst of a possible major economic bubble.

      I'd love to work on an idea that is part of the next wave. Maybe something in VR or something that spans 2 or more industries and gets them working together.

      If:
      The Internet + Cars = Uber
      The Internet + Cash = Bitcoin
      The Internet + Homes = Airbnb

      Then I'm curious what the Internet + work looks like — beyond just "remote work".

      I'd also love to work with a founder (or founding team) that's started other companies before. I've loved working for first-time founders, but it's not going to be my preference going forward. I want to work with someone who knows the roadmap and what's possible before we even jump into product ideas.

      If I can get all that — plus part-time hours & no work after 5pm 😅 — I'll be a happy camper.

      When it comes to launching — I think it's essential to have a team that's comfortable with experiments. Pop out a startup one day, pivot its core mission the next week, run a few high-profile marketing experiments a week later and then build an MVP for a totally different market a few weeks later... Maybe the next unicorn will be a portfolio of small bets :)

      1. 2

        That sounds like a dream job for everyone, good team, on the wave, work-life balance, does it really exist 😅 But if I ever get a chance to look for another job, that would probably be my criteria too 😉

  9. 2

    Thanks for the words of encouragement! Guess I'll spend the rest of this evening finishing off my website 🤓

    1. 1

      You can do it! (Btw, what are you using to build it?)

      1. 2

        Webflow - Thought it would be cool to teach myself how to use it as I'd heard it was great for Website Design newbies lie me.

        1. 1

          It's a great system! I'd also highly recommend Tailwind UI if you have the budget for it. It'll pay for itself many times over and I think it's gorgeous.

          1. 1

            Thanks for the tip! I've heard a lot of people talk about tailwind

  10. 2

    I've made those exact same mistakes with my previous projects. Just building, delaying launching until it was 100% done just to have a big launch day when nobody showed up.

    With my last product neologin.co I'm doing the opposite. I quickly hacked a prototype to validate the idea then asked for feedback and put the website up detailing what I'm gonna build and will be sharing everything about it. Let's see how it will turn out this time.

  11. 2

    How do you decide how early to launch?

    1. 2

      As soon as you have the idea. That's when it's fresh and you know exactly why you're excited about it.

      Draw up a blog post, a Twitter thread, or an email — along with an illustration or video — and hit publish.

      That's a soft launch, but you can see immediately if people are excited about it or not and start asking them WHY.

      It will give you the context you need, as well as a list of people to email to beta test your first version!

      1. 3

        Great tip. That's exactly what I'm trying with https://neologin.co. Essentially I just wrote a blog post explaining the problem and how I'm gonna solve it and put an email form at the bottom for people to follow my progress.

  12. 2

    What has been the best way to connect with your audience for a given product?

    1. 1

      I think side project marketing is king.

      Steps:

      1. Invest 1,000% of your effort into an incredibly valuable resource that's appealing to the same market that your premium product is in
      2. Release this resource for FREE

      Result:

      • That resource can go viral
      • You can gain lots of followers
      • You can recruit people to a newsletter
      • People will see you as an expert
      • People will know you make high-quality content

      ...so, when you decide to launch your paid product, you'll already have social proof, good reach, a good reputation, and a list of people to tell about it!

      Examples of side project marketing:

      • A guide (website or ebook)
      • A podcast
      • A cheatsheet
      • A 1-hour video course
      • A checklist
      • A simple app that does 1 thing well

      The key is: it has to be really good 💎 and it has to be FREE. All the great indie hackers (Wes Bos, Adam Wathan, Pieter Levels, Arvid Kahl) use this method — just look at their latest tweets!

  13. 2

    Hi David,

    I hear ya on the importance of launching and getting something out into the market quickly. But how do you think about this if you are launching a product in an already established, competitive market? The risk is that your early product almost definitely isn't mature enough to really compete—one could argue a product that's not "good enough" could create negative associations or experiences with your product and brand. How would you balance this concern?

    Geoff

    1. 1

      Hi Geoff, thanks for the great question!

      Here's my advice:

      1. Attack the competition for what they're lacking
      2. Respond faster to new market forces and publicize these shifts quickly
      3. Be different — if they're serious, be silly. If they're polite, be off-the-cuff.

      Your exposure early on will be really low, so even if you create a slightly negative reputation, it will be with a small segment of the market, so the risk is low!

      I wouldn't worry too much about negative associations though. I think it go either way, really! If customers have a negative experience, but you respond and fix the issue quickly, that's a win in my book. Plus, people love supporting small companies — publish a little about section on your homepage and make it clear that you're a mission-driven company.

      Then you can use a dual-sided marketing strategy of giving away the features the BIG players charge for and charge money for the features they don't/won't/can't offer at all. For example, if they make a grammar/spelling checker, release a free grammar/spelling checker that's better than their paid one. And, if they won't support AI auto-completions, release a paid plugin for their service that adds AI auto-completions.

      If your free offerings and paid plugins succeed (fill a gap they're ignoring), you'll have a list of future customer emails and you can either continue releasing plugins — or jump right into building your own version of their product that does the ONE or TWO big things they're missing.

      Make it clear to your customers at every step that you move faster, respond in a more human way to customer requests, and can pivot at a moment's notice — while the competition are set in their ways and have been working on a buggy version 2.0 for 5 years! Write lots of blog posts. Keep your customers involved and updated and part of your journey.

      You can also take a page out of Ghost's marketing strategy from 2012 and do an aspirational launch — hardly any working product, but a great design & mission & focus that points out everything wrong with the competition and gets people excited about a better, smoother, newer alternative. It can get you off on the right foot!

  14. 1

    In a similar vein, the Oatmeal has a great comic about not getting over-invested into a single idea, especially if you haven't validated it, like a 16 part novel about an inter-dimensional Sasquatch. TheOatmeal: Killing your Darlings

  15. 1

    Awesome article, thanks for sharing the experience with all of us!

    This definitely emphasizes being as efficient as possible in finding product market fit as well. Flexport started with just a landing page before a line of code was even written and they had a list of sign ups ready for them to validate further.

  16. 1

    Are there any common features that you had to implement in each startup?

    1. 1

      Yes! User accounts, basic CRUD operations on the database, a lot of UI components were similar — tons of functionality overlapped!

      I'm actually working on a startup right now to try to remove this duplicated effort and streamline the process of launching & iterating quickly: Remake.

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