Week 12: Did it work?
Let's get right to the key question, shall we? How did last week's launch go?
It's always hard to know the long-term impact of big marketing moments, but here are some stats:
25,000 combined social media impressions
Number 5 on the front page of Hacker News
Middle overall ranking on Product Hunt
38 product sign ups
What did I learn from all this, and what should happen next? Let’s get into it.
Momentum came from building in public
Most of the numbers I cited above are pretty good! How did I, as a single person, manage to go that far on the internet?
I think a lot of the success has to do with building in public. When you launch a product at most companies, it’s somewhat of a surprise. The launch date is kept secret in case there’s a setback.
But if you’re transparent, you have plenty of opportunity to create anticipation. I had a week’s worth of social material queued up to get people ready.
By launch day, I was able to call on more than 250 friends to help get the word out—not to mention everyone who was signed up for the product wait list!
The getting started experience is everything
I talked last week about how crucial the getting started experience is, and this week I learned the lesson afresh.
I spent the days before the launch trying to iron out every kink and I still hit problems: bugs in the on-boarding, mobile CSS issues, and a few other things.
Every ounce of effort here was worth it. And if I could do it again, I’d try even harder. It’s an investment that never goes bad.
The sign-up rate was probably normal
I was pretty bummed seeing only a handful sign-ups given that my goal was at least 100. But overnight, I saw the numbers grow. Why did that happen?
If you were tuning into my launch on Tuesday, you were probably working, and probably should’ve been doing something else! Few people are in a position to drop everything and go try a new product on the spot.
I have this pipe dream that if I build the perfect product, people will literally come running and sign up right now.
But it’s not true. You have to grind out a win at time. And you have to fit into other people’s busy schedules to do it.
The game hasn’t changed
Yesterday someone asked me a good question: What will you do now?
The answer isn’t, “Go build a big feature”. It’s what it always has been: continue to recruit new users and provide value to them.
Mostly that means listening and inventing on their behalf.