
Ask HN: What do you do when you hit your MVP and are ready to show the public? - xs
I&#x27;ve just completed a project that is ready for public consumption, but not yet ready for mass market consumption. I have just completed the minimum viable product portion of the service. I&#x27;m aware of some bugs and the site simply isn&#x27;t built to scale or work in all localizations. So I don&#x27;t feel ready for a big announcement with a rush of visitors. What are some methods for doing a small scale launch?
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ezekg
Honestly, the average launch doesn't get a rush of visitors whenever you 'make
the big announcement' \-- that kind of thinking isn't really grounded in
reality. You may hear about it on HN, PH and the Twitters, but they're the
exception, not the norm.

Reality is that _nobody_ will visit your site after you launch and you'll have
to work really, really hard at getting those first few customers.

I've put my hopes into the 'launch rush' before and was crushed when it didn't
happen. (Twice, actually.)

You built the MVP, and that's an awesome milestone, but that doesn't mean the
hard work is over -- it's only a start of a different kind of work.

Just pull the trigger and deal with issues as they come in.

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AznHisoka
which 2 products did you launch?

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ezekg
[https://keygen.sh](https://keygen.sh) and
[https://www.themejuice.it](https://www.themejuice.it).

~~~
mod
Themejuice has a sweet design.

I'm not your target market, but I liked looking around it for a minute.

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Mz
So, let me ask you this (and this is NOT snark, honest):

What "big announcement" do you think you are capable of making that would
result in some rush of visitors?

Gosh, most people have no idea how to make that happen. Do you? If you do, can
I have some tips, pretty please?

Most likely, you don't even know how to engineer that. So, start putting it
out there via whatever channels you are aware of that might work, such as Show
HN or Twitter or whatever. It probably won't get the big rush you are
expecting.

I say this as someone who sometimes posts things of mine to HN and they
sometimes get a few dozen hits and eventually go up to like 100 or 200 page
views. Yes, I also have one piece that has had around 40k page views over some
period of weeks. In the grand scheme of things, this is not really a lot of
traffic.

Even if you hit the front page of HN, it may not be the rush of visitors of
your dreams of avarice. Going viral is the exception, not the norm.

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paulmatthijs
We did what was in hindsight a small launch. We put our app on Betalist first,
got good response, redid a bunch of things, got it out on Product Hunt, got
some more attention.

Then we targeted reviewers of competing/related products. That's what the
kicker was in the end. A small launch easily eats up all your time, so keep it
simple. A continuous drip beats a big bang.

Is your product niche enough so that there's a handful of sites covering it?
Reach out to them. That's all you'll need in the start, and honestly all that
is possible for you to reach. Don't go the way of paid ads and such, put in
sweat first.

PS: IMHO you don't get to decide if you reach MVP, it's the users that do so
by telling you it's a useful product and they're happy to be using it. Then
they'll start asking to add more features ;)

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siquick
Paid ads are good to start off with because they instantly drive traffic and
will allow you to iterate quickly if users just aren't picking up what you're
putting down. The downside is cost. Once you've established that you have a
product that people want, then you can scale your marketing efforts to
channels that require more effort (PR, relationship building, outbound sales).

read this [http://tractionbook.com/](http://tractionbook.com/)

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bsvalley
Use the group of people you talked to when you validated your idea before
jumping on your MVP. At this stage you should have built something they want.
Protect passord your website or app and send them an invite.

Unless you spent time building something without knowing if people want it...

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tabeth
Friends, family and colleagues. Any other method runs the method of going
viral. Good luck!

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jordancampbell
Perhaps use a signup service that allows you to select which users can try
your service.

