

Ask HN: What do founders spend their time on, after their product launch? - vaksel

Seems like all the startup stories you hear, more or less play out like Cinderella, you hear about every minute detail about preparing for launch etc, then you launch, and pretty much end up with "...and they lived happily ever after". Maybe a year down the line you hear about a new version, and a few years later you might hear about the acquisition.<p>So what do the founders spend their time on after they launch?(3+ months after launch). You know things besides coding new features.
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swombat
Those cocktails on the beach don't drink themselves!

After the launch is hell on earth, if you're lucky. A million things are
happening at once, you find out all sorts of stuff you missed, you learn about
all those bugs you didn't catch earlier, feature requests come piling in,
angry or elated customers or users contact you, people get in touch about
working together, deals, opportunities, possibilities, the air is pregnant
with possibility, electrified like the centre of a thunderstorm, things just
KEEP HAPPENING faster than you can keep up with them (you learn to prioritise
real good, too), etc, etc, etc

That's if you're lucky. If you're unlucky, then you have the other kind of
hell, the frozen wasteland where nothing happens and you can't make anyone
care about your product no matter what you do.

I prefer the first kind.

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pg
Building what they should have made.

~~~
madmotive
This underlines to me why it's essential to have technical founders.

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vegashacker
That's a really good point. When early-stage founders aren't technical, the
time/ability they have to "[build] what they should have made" is essentially
constrained by whatever change budget is in the contract they have with their
outsourcers. And in my experience, a change budget is set based on an
(optimistic) estimate of the time needed to add a few unexpected features.
It's certainly not enough to allow for major shifts in focus.

~~~
ksowocki
Great point - Often times, even after launch, startups haven't reached product
market fit, and having a technical co-founder that can iterate the product
according to the evolving vision is key. I recommend reading Eric Ries' Lean
Startup methodology for methods of finding product / market fit.

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gstar
Depends on the business, and what you're doing - but it's more or less:

\- Support

\- Sales - any number of sales-related things like optimising the sales
pipeline or even managing sales staff if you're B2B

\- Marketing and PR

\- Business - things like dealing with raising money, finance, accounting,
trying to negotiate the lawyers fees down, fixing up the license agreement you
originally wrote...

\- Finding Staff - if you're doing well, you might need to hire. It takes a
lot of time up, and it's a huge decision each time.

\- Managing staff - this takes a LOT longer than you think it would, i'd say
between 40-80% of your time gets taken up by managing staff when you get to 3
staff.

\- Product development if you're lucky

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simonw
Launch is the starting point, not the end. Until you've launched something you
have no idea what people actually want. It's a very rare startup which
launches with the right product.

~~~
iamwil
I tried to say this and ended up being 4 sentences. You did it with three. pg
did it in one with "Building what they should have made"

I think he has another tshirt quote.

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charlesju
Perhaps I am in a niche space, but I have found that there is an endless
amount of features and upgrades that can be programmed after the initial
launch.

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andrewljohnson
I have launched my product many times, and it's always more crazy after the
launch than before. In addition, the feature requests just keep piling up:
[http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AhL0igVI9HVNdGpaS3U1...](http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AhL0igVI9HVNdGpaS3U1cS1qOGVNd3h0Slg0a21vUWc&hl=en)

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bbhacker
I don't know about you but here is my experience from my first mobile app:

After 3,5 months of development I was really looking forward to launching,
relaxing and observing. I still remember when I received the notification that
my app is selling and it didn't take long until the first sale came in.

But then you just realized that once your app is finished and launched, you
are just starting. Marketing, sales, letting other people know about your
app/startup, bug fixing, customer support.

While marketing is not everything, you will realize that even if you have an
awesome product you have to market it because there is simply too much out
there that anyone will notice. Of course if your product is not great, your
marketing efforts are wasted. But without marketing efforts, nobody will know
about your app.

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ig
After you launch, you continue to get up at 6am (because now you have
customers that need your support) and work til 12am for the next 3 years
before you even see the beginnings of a "...and they lived happily ever
after."

The day after a launch is just as, if not more, important than your launch
date.

This weekend alone have exhibited the closure of Lookery and Findory (two
startups that have been at it for quite a while) and the proof that launch is
merely the beginning.

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niallsmart
Figuring out why their conversion is 0.01%.

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hoffer
Obsessive support

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rs
promote, feedback, build, (rinse,) repeat.. always repeat.

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wglb
Trajectory.

