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Launch Day for Benchmark App - First Failures

Thought it important to not just say "We're live on Product Hunt, go show us some love!" but share the process and what it's like launching your first product on PH.

(Here's the link though, if you are so inclined: https://www.producthunt.com/posts/benchmark-app)

The last few weeks have been intense. We've been working with our developer (who's using Bubble.io to build the app) to make sure everything works, everything looks good, and is ready for launch day.

For the last two weeks particularly it felt like one step forward two steps back. Every time we made an improvement, something else would stop working.

This kept going all the way to yesterday, the day before launch. It felt like half of the app wasn't working now, so the stress levels started rising.

I was supposed to be recording walkthroughs of the app so that people could see what it does and how to use it. But I couldn't, because those parts of the app weren't working.

I'd been using the Product Hunt Ship page to build up interest in the launch and find interested people. We had 14 people sign up, which was more than I expected, but also a little frustrating because I knew if I had put more focus into that we could have connected with more people.

Launching products is NOT an, "if you build it, they will come" scenario. Every early user is someone who is coming to you as a very early adopter, and you not only have to go find them and show them why they should start using your app, but you have to do it in their terms, and you have to do it manually unless you've already built an audience.

We also had about 60 people sign up to be notified through email. People that had downloaded the beta version of the app, or otherwise requested to be notified when it launched. Though we sent weekly, and then daily, updates, the engagement was pretty low. We only had one person ever reply to the emails.

As many of you know, the day before launch and launch day are full of stress. You're thinking of all the things that could have been done, all the things left to do, all of the imperfections in the app -- that only you see because you're so intimately aware of them.

It was a long day yesterday which included celebrating my wife's 40th birthday, so a big chunk of the day was reserved for time with her and her family.

By the time I got back to the computer it was 10:30pm and I was wiped, so rather than stay up to launch live on Product Hunt, I scheduled it for 12:01am PDT and went to bed.

I was out in about 2 minutes.

I woke up this morning to see if we had any early traction, and...nothing. What happened? Is the app even live? Some people already have 150+ upvotes!

The mild panic started turning into more-than-mild panic so I snapped up and went back to my computer to see what happened. Somehow, despite the scheduling confirmation on one tab for 12:01am on March 30th, the new tab with the app is showing it's scheduled for March 31ST at 12:01.

Facepalm.

So I scrambled, again, to turn the post to LIVE and hope that we didn't lose too much time this morning not being early in the launch day.

Luckily a few people started to upvote it, and we even got our first user of the app!

Ok, last story. I began to message that very first user, only to find that they had already sent a message! I was so excited to hear from them, until I started reading their email:

Hi Benchmark Team, your web app UI is not up to the make that we are expect. Its not usability, clarity, interactive. Try better version of UX/ UI on your next release. Have a good day!

Have a good day?!? Are you kidding me! Haha. Amazing.

I had to smile and shrug it off, but point of the story is that launching a product is not all as glamorous as it may seem from the outside.

The important thing to remember is that there's no such thing as a perfect product. You'll never feel ready to launch. So you have to set a date, commit to it (using something like Ship to make that commitment public), and then release it no matter what.

There are things I wish were different about the app. Things I wish were faster, clearer, more intuitive. Believe me, I know "Its not usability, clarity, interactive." Better than anyone.

But we shipped today. And it feels pretty amazing.

*(We built a minimum effective dose business intelligence and analytics tool, specifically for founders, creators, and indie hackers. It will help you grow your business. Check it out at https://www.producthunt.com/posts/benchmark-app)

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    Should add that there are no such things as failures. They're lessons. They're attempts. They're proof that you are trying and are putting in the work.

    Failures give you results that you can learn from, improve upon, and make another, better attempt.

    Don't let the fear of failure stop you from trying, because if you never try you can never succeed.

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