"Just ship it" is not always the right mindset
Hey, Indie Hackers 👋️ I'm so happy today!
I have always open sourced my apps, or at least released them for free. The list includes:
etc.
Today, I have finally launched a paid app!
Twizzy (https://twizzy.app) is a macOS app for Twitter DM & tweeting from the menu bar.
You can notice that I have spent a loooot of time on the landing page. I did the same thing with ok-google.io.
A lot of polish, responsive design, days wasted on complex animations, interactive elements, dark/light mode, easter eggs, etc.
I could've "just shipped" the app with the most generic landing page ever. The "MVP" was already ready. I was burnt out from the work on the actual app.
If I followed the "just ship it" motto I would've just spent a day on the landing page and ship it. But I don't agree with that motto at all. The landing page is what sells the app. I knew that a week of work on it would pay off more for all the previous work that I did.
So now people are sharing and discussing the app because they were impressed by the design and interactivity of the landing page, which leads to more sales.
If I released a generic page or a buggy app with an intent to improve it later, the magic would be gone. You can always "launch" a v2, but it will never have the same powerful effect as the v1.
This is just my observation, and I'm happy to discuss it here :)
Cheers!
I think this feeds into the misinterpretation of what an MVP is intended to be. If your release is buggy, it’s not an MVP. Think of it as the smallest polished thing you can do that solves the customer problem, not a shoddy app that gets the point across.
I see many people forget the “viable” part of MVP, and over-focus on the minimum. Quality is, in most cases, a prerequisite for viability.
I totally agree with you! Most people take MVP as an excuse for being lazy and shipping an unfinished thing.
If people won't use your app when it's shitty and broken, it probably doesn't solve a real problem or else you're not positioning it correctly. If your site looks like it was made by a middle schooler then yeah it's going to be hard to convert people just stumbling on it via Google or whatever, but if your target customer segment won't use it when you reach out to them then you've likely made a mistake during your customer development process.
Agreed. Just to clarify, when I reference "quality," I'm not talking about appearance, I'm talking about functionality and stability. If your customer development process highlights one key piece of functionality, then make sure that works as expected.
I really don't care what the solution looks like, so long as it solves my problem reliably.
The idea behind just ship it is not to invest time developing options and tools your users don't want. It doesn't mean making something ugly just because is faster.
Like with your new product, you could have added Instagram DM (just an example), or automatic replies, etc. But you don't even know whether the users exist. Instead of spending more time building, you put a limit and shipped it. What you and everybody defines as limits is personal. Maybe design, may be doing something blazingly fast...
I'm not a Mac user, but congrats on your app!
You described it very well. Thank you!
As a mobile app maker I completely agree. No one will download it if it looks amateurish. I'd rather spend time polishing a small amount of functionality than loads of features that are unfinished.
It all depends on the niche though. If it's something completely new you'll always have early adopters even if it's unpolished
The landing page looks really nice!
But I have to say that your sentence here "Twizzy (https://twizzy.app) is a macOS app for Twitter DM & tweeting from the menu bar." explains the app much better to me than the page.
Thanks for the feedback!
I agree that you should not "just ship it" unless your at a point where you are comfortable with what is being displayed. This includes the landing page and the MVP itself. By the way, nice work on your project and the UI is phenomenal.
Thank you!
That looks awesome! Curious as to what you used for the landing page animations?
Hey, thanks! I used React and react-pose. It's gonna be open sourced soon.
Very valid point! I think it's important to almost never take anything dogmatically. Context is king, and what works for one situation won't work for another.
Someone who already has plenty of experience shipping (such as yourself!) can probably afford to spend more time on polish, without fear of abandoning the project and having all that work go to waste.
But for someone new to the scene (such as myself!), I think it is very important to not let the little things get in the way. Quantity is better than quality in this case, as the newbie has so little experience, it's most important to just learn as much as possible, and you learn by doing, making mistakes, and shipping!
That's true, but keep in mind that before I shipped my first app (ok-google.io) I still had the same mindset. The app was ready for a week before I launched. I just wanted to do a crazy intro animation because I knew people would share it because of it.
But yes, I first made sure that the app functionality is 100% done, before I worked on the extra polish.
Congrats. It looks amazing
I don't know if "just ship it" is the correct but wrapping your product announcement in something that engages the community is pretty smart :)
Oh and the toggle is fun ;)
Fantastic thanks :)
What an MVP is will vary for different people based on their resources, mostly skills and money.
You're fortunate that you have the skills to design a great landing page for your product. It would make no sense that you shipped your product with a landing page that didn't do justice to your talents.
I love all your landing pages!
This is a bit off topic but I really like your sizzy.co site and I would use it, even over FireFox's Responsive Design mode which is excellent. For the fact that I like the idea that you can inspect all the sites at once. What kills it for me though is that switching layout doesn't actually reload the page content, it just changes the aspect ratio :\. In responsive design, switching landscape to portrait or vice versa actually changes the presentation of the page content and changing aspect isn't enough. Hope you can update it. If you aren't too burned out.
Holy shit, that looks amazing!
Congrats on the launch! I’m not a Mac person, neither I use Twitter that much, but this does look great!
Totally agree with you as well. IMO it’s better to invest into making one good product than make dozens of mediocre MVPs that never outlive a week after their launch on Product Hunt. Of course, the strategy "throw it at the wall and see what sticks" still works for some, but for that you must have hell of energy and never get attached to what you build.
My app Three.do is super minimal, yet I was still building its first version for 6 months. But it really paid off.
Also my landing page sucks. It’s built on Bootstrap with vanilla HTML/CSS and no JS — the last time when I did any web coding was 2012, lol. But I never thought it to be detrimental to the app’s success — well, I lost traffic from DesignerNews, but that’s not a big deal for now.
I totally agreed with you. More quality, less marketing. Let'in the customers be your salesman.
The LP is stunning! I don't use Twitter, I even don't use Mac OS but yet I desperately want to get Twizzy :D
I really like the website!
Just an idea: You could use the battery API to show the actual battery level if supported
This Twizzy landing page is insane 🔥👍🔥👍
Simply perfect and crisp clear! Need to learn to do LP's like this one 😅
I agree with you that taking your time to polish a product helps to sell it in the long run. Keep up the great work 💪💰🤑😅
Thank you!
How do you falsify those statements? They're not very scientific.
Do you know that for certain? That sounds like your opinion.
Yes, I know, otherwise I woudln't state that. You can check it here: https://twitter.com/thekitze/status/1064828623922896897
I don't think there is any magic that then disappears for a v2. I think that's a rationalization of a feeling on your part (we all do it -- also if it helps you stay motivated, more power to you). You could always rename it if it's really a problem. Of course renaming and generally promoting something is effort so I do agree it's a balancing act between good and good enough.
I think the emphasis on shipping early comes from a general tendency to ship late and to over engineer before anything is validated. I definitely skew the other way and just throw stuff up on GitHub before it's even finished.
You're right! Sometimes you need more feedback and validation before it is released.
You don't want to be releasing useless products.
There's a balance here. You want to release something your users will love without spending way too much time on your product without proper validation for your users.
Yes, it's all about the balance.
Hey thats a beautiful landing page! I can tell you took your time on it.. I also agree with your P.O.V.
If you're going to build a product, you should probably build something you'd be happy to share!
Thank you!
I agree. Just ship it is not cool. But infinitely tweaking is not cool either. Some people just don't know when to stop.
The key is to find a balance, but devs are leaning too much on the "just ship it" side and they release half-assed products.
"X" is not always the right mindset
Just wanted to say twizzy landing page is amazing (i'm referring to the switch with the discount and fireworks!)
Thank you!
Hey @kitze nice to see you here! I follow you on Twitter for your takes on react and js dev, it's working great so far 😂
Great work on the landing. I don't know if there's more easter eggs but the toggle one is awesome! It totally worth the time spent IMHO, the whole thing just give a great impression, like the people behind it really cares, you know?
Hey, I'm mostly lurking here, but it's good to finally engage :)
Yes, that was the point. Thank you!
Great work and a lovely landing page indeed!
"The landing page is what sells the app." – I think your arguments are perfectly valid for your specific use case:
However, from experience I know there are dozens of other examples where an unpolished or even non-existing landing page doesn't harm the product. I am working on a B2B application where we gather feedback from our target audience (law firms) purely by "bell-ringing" and doing demonstrations; we don't even have a landing page yet. In that case, a "big bang" release might be the most beautiful thing ever built, but might totally miss the target. We still have a long way ahead until we have a "landing page that sells the app" and still we already do have a sales pipeline that will likely pay (some of) our bills.
Yup, it's all about the context. I'm following this pattern because it works for my type of apps (for now), but it might not be for everyone. Good luck with your app!
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Thanks!
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Exactly, well said.