Reviving an old project I made $300+ with last year, the mistakes I'm fixing from last launch.

So I recently started investing a lot more time in revamping, cleaning up, expanding features and re-launching a tool I made over a year ago with moderate success. I ended up making about $300 after a couple months last go around, before fizzling off and shelving the project due to getting a job and losing interest. But I decided to revive it since it's a per-validated idea and market, and the biggest hurdle is now marketing and regaining users for the project.

The biggest mistakes I made last time that hurt my success:

1. Waiting too long to launch

I worked on the tool for 3 months before launching with no kind of pre-sign up or validation or landing page or building SEO up or anything. Which wasn't terrible because it was a pre-existing validated tool, and didn't exist in a lot of the competitors suites yet, but I could have had a working MVP and launched in a month if I had sucked it up and did the hard back end work I was avoiding, instead of procrastinating and fussing with the design for weeks longer than needed. (And it was still hideous) I made money from it despite it being horribly ugly, barely functional, and fairly buggy. Because it solved the problem for people who needed it and did it before/better than the bigger slow moving existing companies. This time I wont be so lucky because many of the bigger competitors woke up and added this as a feature, but their solutions are still not great so it's not hopeless.

2. Not getting user feedback immediately

Last time I was too nervous and insecure, tying my ego to the project, so I didn't get the user feedback I should have. Drop the ego, it's a website not your first born child, harsh critics are actually your best friend as a builder. Because they're not sugarcoating and giving you kind platitudes like your friends and family will. If they don't like something (unless it's pretty trivial like personal taste), there's a decent chance your users who would actually pay you probably don't either. The things they don't like are what's going to make people turn away from your app without even giving it a chance, so those need to be fixed FAST. Let people roast your project, ask them what sucks about it. DON'T ask people what they like, let them tell you themselves because they will actually be honest if you do, you can ask your actual users (once you get them) to leave you reviews but don't ask for a pat on the back from Reddit/IndieHackers, ask for actual feedback because there are some very smart talented people on here that will actually give it to you FOR FREE. I am much more confident in my abilities as a developer now so it's much easier to do because I can better identify when someone is giving actual good advice vs. the classic Reddit unfounded confidently wrong responses.

3. Not cold reaching out to my current or potential customers

Again, drop the ego, nobody cares that much, they will probably just ignore you, but who cares, if 2% don't ignore you and that makes you $50, you made $50 for just a little bit of time and kindly reaching out to 100 people. If you don't make any money they might tell you something that helps you understand how people use your app and make it 3x better, leading to better experiences for everyone else who uses it in the future. I wish I had actually talked to the people who paid for my product because it would probably be 4x better if I did, and they would have probably stuck around a lot longer if I fixed the things they didn't like quickly.

4. More data and analytics

Don't use this as an excuse to delay your MVP, but when you have your project up and running and before you start working on features nobody asked for, add analytics to track what actually works, where are people coming from, who ends up actually using the app, who ends up actually paying for it, how much churn, how many people get confused and leave quickly. These are all very important and you don't have to cold email 500 people to get this information.

Oh and don't make B2C apps, consumers are way too price sensitive and don't have much need for software beyond instagram and youtube anyways. Don't make a habit tracker, don't make a calorie tracker, don't make a AI assistant that fixes your life, don't make "A better notes app" (People will just stick to notion I promise you), if you do not have millions in VC backing you have basically no chance in most B2C SaaS spaces. SOLVE A BUSINESS PROBLEM. Business have more money that they are willing to SPEND if you can provide them actual value and make them more money.

Let me know your thoughts or experiences with your past/current launches and if you made any similar mistakes or things you wished you did sooner. ChatGPT didn't write this post for once so I'd love to hear what other IndieHackers think.