On October 22 I've launched online my first website. I'd like to share with you my experience.
But first, let me gave you some context:
- I came up with the idea around the beginning of October.
- I searched if there's already something similar around.
- Nothing showed up.
- Great! I started building the app
Two weeks later i had something that i thought it was complete.
I was ready to let the world know about my amazing website.
I was ready to let the world know about my amazing website.
I decided to proceed in 3 steps:
- 1st day - HackerNews : was a complete fail, no traction at all and i've got only 6 upvote, not enough for making it to the front page.
- 2nd day - IndieHackers : was quite better but did not get the engagement that i was excepting ( i guess that it could happen 🙂)
- 3rd day - ProductHunt : was the best source of traction among the three (97 upvote) and even got some paying customer. That day i was euphoric 🥳
I was very disappointed by the first two launches. Like a little kid, as i still am, i hoped that magically all the people would love unconditionally my product and share it.
What i though was a final website in reality it was just a draft, or to be more precise my idea on how to place and promote the product was fuzzy and incomplete:
- I changed the description of my website in each of the launch. I even added one basic feature during Product Hunt's launch by reading their comments.
- I did not think about the importance of having a twitter account ( create it later , after PH 🤦♂️). It gives a social proof and prevent you to be categorize as a scam.
- I did not read HackerNews submission rules, i could have changed the title and observe those rules.
I can see now after a months that the major problem was me being too eager to launch my website. Being my first project ( and a IndieHackers wannabe 👨💻) I gave too much importance to the idea of launching it that It made me lose focus on simpler and more important things.
TL;DR
Launched my website on Hackernews, Indiehackers, Producthunt, but got traction only in the latter. I did not have a clear idea about my product and how to place it.
Those are my takeways If you are about to launch something:
- have a clear positioning for your product ( it helps when you communicate with your users and even with yourselves)
- don't rush into things ( prepare every details of the launch , even perfect product need perfect marketing)
- don't let your enthusiasm think that your product it's so good that everyone will talk about it.
- have a social account before launching ( users can engage directly with you)
- interact with the final users 🗣 ( receive comment and have a conversation with your users is fundamental for understanding how you could shape your product to better fit their needs)
I'm still thrilled of this experience. It gave me a lot of confidence in my capabilities and i'm happy to have made those mistakes. It only means next time i'll be more prepared.
I really hope that you could find some help from those words 😇
P.S. If you are curious of what my website is about, you can check IsRicherThanYou.com and let me know what you think.