Hi, I'm on the verge of releasing my first hobby app that I think would have users apart from myself. Any tips for making a good launch?
- How do I stop fighting the urge to delay my release until I fix problem A or add feature B?
- What platforms should I promote to? DEV #showcase, indiehackers, product hunt, Reddit...
- How should I take criticism?
- Do I need a super good looking landing page or will the app speak for itself?
- If I'm launching it free for now, does it look bad if I try to monetize it later?
Top comments (5)
A few thoughts:
Thanks for the tips. I never thought about EULA and I should probably look it up. Regarding contact, I initially thought a Twitter handle is enough, but on second thought adding a chat widget might be cool. Looking at my target demographics, I think a discord channel might be the best.
Nice! Yeah, putting yourself in the seat of a user can open your eyes to what they're seeing and experiencing.
Hi Matthew, I'm in the same situation. I spent a few days working on the MVP and when it was 80% ready I published it.
It will never be perfect and you will never be finished. Just do it :)
Start with friends and family and ask them for feedback, if you haven't done so already. After that I would start with 1 platform, where you have a following and see what kind of feedback you get. I just shared my project on DEV a few days ago asking for feedback and got a lot of very valuable comments from the community.
Ignore the jerks and trolls. Reply to everybody else. Consider the criticism and either build it in or if it doesn't fit, reply why it doesn't.
You should have at least some kind of front page to welcome users. It doesn't have to be super long, my landing page is a one pager with a heading, a tagline and 1 or 2 sentences.
If you are open about it, it shouldn't be a problem. Will you make it freemium or go from free to paid for all?
Good luck :)
Thanks for the tips. I think I'll spend some time on the landing page first then. I'm glad you got feedback from DEV! I hope I can get valuable feedback here too. That being said, I know I'm not that good at responding to criticism so I'll probably ignore it until the heat goes off. As for monetization, I think I'll do freemium for now, and maybe add some new features down the road for the paid version.