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What's your top tip for a successful launch?

I've been developing websites professionally for over 10 years, but it's always through an agency setting, with other developers, designers and project managers ensuring a smooth and successful launch. It's never been for my own product.

So even though I've launched countless websites, most large complex projects, this feels different and I'm a little nervous!

To help settle the nerves and to make sure I'm making the maximum effort and I've not forgotten anything, what would be your top tip to make a successful launch?

  1. 6

    Launch is over-hyped and majority of us are not launching products that will see flood of users on launch day anyway. For a successful launch, have less hopes from a launch. Do everything you can but don't look at the results of launch to judge the success of the product/project. As long as you are monitoring right metrics, then know its gonna take a while to build something meaningful, so keep working at it.

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      That's very true! We're not expecting a flood of traffic and we'll be continually developing post launch. Having the monitoring in place before launch is a good tip though, I had Analytics setup but just the base install. I've now configured it to track a few key metrics so we can measure hopeful conversions. Thanks!

  2. 4

    build it in public so people know it's coming

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      Thanks Harry, any tips with the best way going about this for a time-strapped founder?

      I'd be up for doing it, but I guess it's knowing what do you share publicly - would my target market care or even notice?

      The only really good example I've come across is Nathan Barry with Convertkit - but he put a lot of time into this.

  3. 3

    One tip is don't forget to put your URL in every post and almost every comment - https://tidze.com

    To follow my own advice mine is Uclusion.

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      That would become spammy real quick without context.

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        That would be my concern too. I'd want to promote without alienating or spamming.

    2. 1

      Ha ha, thanks for the tip - but the real site is coming soon! Maybe, me posting more often would help.

  4. 2

    I've seen many founders pre-launching/launching on Twitter. But, normally an audience is "built" beforehand. Potential customers following you on Twitter and with high engagement.

    Building in the open, as Harry mentioned, showing your work in IH and Twitter is one way to engage people. Another would be giving value, showing what you are experienced about, in a subject related to your to-be-launched product. One more is creating a sense of community on Twitter. Something that @rosiesherry is expert, doing it with IndieHackers.

    This is one strategy that I've seen working well and one that I'd use if I was launching a product.

    1. 1

      Thanks Leo, that's really solid advice.

      We have started doing this with Twitter and we already have a growing waiting list.

      I've then personally emailed anyone on the list to find out how we can help and to arrange a pre-launch demo.

      Building up a community and sharing what we're doing more frequently seems the way to go.

  5. 2

    I set a date, tracked to it, and made a small post to announce the launch. In the week leading up to it, I primed the pump a little with a short video released to a small group. I wanted them to get used to me talking about my project Lift Academy. Then I got a little bolder and posted in a community group. I’ll wait a little while for feedback, use it to hone my message, and then post in a larger group. As the day progresses, I’m taking notes about whimsical ways to promote, and I’ll turn those into Clubhouse stories and vet/schedule them

    I worked mainly on dev for the last 4 weeks, so as ideas for promotion or launching came up, I recorded them in Notes and tried to get as many as I could into Clubhouse so I could tackle them. I knew I’d be wanting to measure my channels so made sure to code in some analytics.

    I’ve planned the next week or so to do much more launch promotion. I’m really trying to see what resonates with who, listen carefully to feedback, and prepare for a larger push at the end of August.

    So I just punted most of my launch stuff until now, and now I’m wading through it to kind of build up a strong launch period. Good luck!

    1. 1

      Thanks Davey, I'm trying to do the same - I have a Notion page with various marketing and promotional ideas that I come across.

      Like you, we're planning to start small and as our confidence grows we'll try and reach out to bigger communities.

      Right now, all I've been doing is a few Twitter posts and liking related content - hopefully getting our name noticed. We've had a few positive leads from this.

      Good luck with your launch too!

  6. 1

    Always be launching 🚀 . I think sometimes we get caught up in the hype of a launch....but launching is never really a one time event. You are always going to be iterating, refining or adding new features to your product or service. Taking on the 'Always be launching' mindset is to always work to continuously improve.

    1. 2

      I like the mindset, I guess I was referring to the big reveal when you start shouting about the project. How would you go about making sure that was successful?

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