Launch Vitamins

I built the webpage, did my research on what SMS provider to use and then...nothing. I sat on things for a week or two. I don't really have an excuse, I just did. On June 9 I was scheduled to get a vasectomy (too much info?!) and so I thought, there's no better date to launch something. The end of one era (having kids) and the start of a new era, Launch Vitamins!

My first attempt at launching on HackerNews received a total of 1 upvote (mine) and 1 comment (also mine). Not great! To be fair, all of my previous launches look the same. Am I doing something wrong? Are my titles not compelling enough? Am I timing it wrong? Is everyone else cheating/buying upvotes/getting friends to upvote? I want to do things right so I try to get organic upvotes, but it doesn't work!

Anyways, today I tried a Show HN post. Currently have 2 upvotes (100% improvement 😂). My Google Analytics currently shows someone on the page from Poland and the US. Still no comments though.

I know I will eventually need a robust SMS marketing tool to use with Launch Vitamins. I had previously built PrestoText.com but it wasn't 100% what I needed. I would need a way to keep track of conversations as well as details about each specific customer.

I knew about Avachato and looked into it. I immediately hit some roadblocks, first, they don't allow Canadian customers. That's weird.... A quick chat with their support told me to text CANADA to their support phone number. No response.... tried again a few days later and finally got a trial account set up.

I also tested out SimpleTexting which I found had a few features I really liked. First, they allow "Notes" within a conversation. Notes appear in the thread but the end user (in my case the customer) can't see the note. It's a great way to keep track of where the customer is in their journey. Additionally their UI was the best with a 1/3 split screen of customers, message thread and customer details.

I used a few websites to find other tools to trial. Specifically Capterra and G2. I had submitted software I developed to these sites in the past but never really used them. I didn't really read the reviews, mostly used the sites to find competitors. I would simply enter a company like SimpleTexting, and it would show me all similar tools. I would check them out and sign up for free trials if able.

As I said above, I've settled on SimpleTexting for now, but happy to hear from others that might have other suggestions.

The idea for Launch Vitamins came from two different places. I've written about it on my #buildinpublic page but will give the short version here as well.

Shaan Puri of the My First Million podcast (highly recommended) tweeted about an SMS productivity service he found, he found it super useful.

Then Keevin of Brainstorms.io sent a newsletter (specifically number #25) detailing the same idea, SMS productivity tool.

I kept thinking about both, bookmarking the tweet and leaving the newsletter in my inbox. I kept coming back to the idea and then finally came across a HN post by Ben Stoakes of tinyprojects.dev. It motivated me to finally start Launch Vitamins. I even chatted with Ben a bunch and he agreed the idea might have legs. So here I am, with another side gig launched to the world!