Why most SaaS MVPs stall after launch (and what founders underestimate)

Biggest post-MVP surprise for me was how much time goes into handling the messy real-world data users actually have. You build your MVP against clean test data, then real users show up with CSVs that have inconsistent date formats, missing fields, and encoding issues. Suddenly you're spending 40% of your time on edge case handling that has nothing to do with your core product.

The other one that caught me off guard: the gap between "users signed up" and "users actually got value." Onboarding improvements alone probably moved the needle more than any new feature I shipped in the first 6 months post-launch. Things like better error messages, progress indicators, and just a single "quick start" guide reduced my support volume by half.

I think the mental shift is from "builder" to "gardener" — after launch you're not constructing anymore, you're pruning, fertilizing, and redirecting growth.

This is exactly the conversation more founders need to have. The "launch = finish" fallacy is real — and dangerous. What I've seen: the post-MVP phase requires a completely different mindset than pre-launch. Before launch, you're building toward a vision. After launch, you're building in response to reality. Integrations and edge cases alone can consume 50% of development time if you're not careful. The smartest founders I know bake in "iteration budget" from day one — they assume 60% of engineering time will go to post-launch improvements, not new features.

Completely agree — the real work starts after launch.
The iteration cycles and edge cases eat way more time than founders expect.
For me the biggest surprise was how much internal tooling/admin work pops up once real users are in.
What was the biggest unexpected time sink for you after MVP?