Chronicles of Launch Day
It’s been an exciting week!
Last Thursday (2019-08-13), after a couple days where my motivation had tanked, I decided to ship the product I was working on.
The whole point of the product was to be simple, but I had been delaying putting it out there.
Tweak this little thing, add that little thing.
I knew I was in a rut of some kind. That was actually the point of the product.
To create something entirely self-contained, that I could build and sell quickly.
To get myself out of the rut.
To build everything products generally need: User accounts, payment processing, deployment methodology, etc.
I had done that.
The product had all that.
The product worked.
What was I waiting for?
So, I shipped.
I made a number of posts in various places:
- https://www.indiehackers.com/post/3161223d94
- https://www.reddit.com/r/SideProject/comments/cqrw2g/i_made_a_service_that_takes_screenshots_of/
- https://www.reddit.com/r/startups/comments/ckmxd4/share_your_startup_august_2019/ewyrha3
- https://www.reddit.com/r/webdev/comments/cqsnh2/my_experience_shipping_my_first_app/
- https://www.reddit.com/r/alphaandbetausers/comments/cqsulm/site_to_image_take_screenshots_of_websites/
As well as submitting the product itself to various online websites that listed my competitors.
The response exceeded my expectations.
So much encouragement, so many ideas and suggestions, hundreds of people hitting the site and kicking the tires!
Nothing crashed, everything worked.
I iterated over the next few days.
Fixed issues, tweaked design, added a small feature, and stayed in contact with those who had expressed interest in the product.
Oh, and I completely overhauled the pricing model 😉
Two days ago, I got my first customer.
I want to say “it was amazing”, and it was.
But more important was an effect more subtle.
The doubt in the back of my mind could no longer stand when faced with reality.
The little insidious voice that said: “Why do you bother building anything? No one will ever buy it!”
That voice was dead wrong.
I built something that was useful to someone, and they bought it. It’s as simple as that.
Is this product my future? It’s too early to tell.
I’ve got a list of marketing ideas I need to try. I’ve done some content marketing research and competitive analysis. I’m running AdWords ads.
We’ll see what happens.
I have my doubts that this product can bring in enough people fast enough to actually support me over the long-term.
However, it looks like I can run it on the side without any undue burden. So that’s the plan.
Too add to that, the launch led to some good conversations about an idea I want to build on top of it. And, at least with their words, people are validating that they’d be interested in it.
What is that new product? Well, it’s a secret for now 😊
But I’m going to try to do even better next time.
I’ve got a good foundation in place, so I can focus nearly all my energy on the core product, rather than the periphery.
Ship sooner, learn sooner.
Exciting times!
P.S. The product that launched last Thursday is called Site to Image - It’s an automated screenshot API for developers.