Let's Launch!

Posted by Dean Miesner on December 1, 2015

Let’s Launch!

An entrepreneur’s path to success is gruesome, full of highs and lows taking a ravaging toll on willpower, social lives and personal income. So why does the number of entrepreneurs continue to grow? The answer is surprisingly simple. The complete, undeniable accomplishment of achieving a personal goal. Launch day for an entrepreneur is a tier one memory along with graduation, wedding, and children’s birth. Now, this is only true if the launch day leads to success. So how do I have a successful launch? How do I gain enough traction to allow my app to grow?

Three Months to Launch Date

Before beginning development, a realistic ideal establishment of a launch date is crucial. In order to research the target market of the application. It is crucial to create a customer profile which includes demographic and psychographic information. The demographics of the target market answer Who? will use your product categorizing by age, location, gender, income and more. Just as important, the psychographic information will answer the Why? a potential customer would use your product. Hobbies, interests, lifestyle, attitudes and behaviors are important information for target market research. Now, assemble the team and analyze the target market and decide a definitive date to launch. Waiting 13 months to launch on an ideal date is incredibly more successful than cramming in the launch in one month disregarding testing, market research and proper traction. The ‘Right Now’ mindset often results in failure after no progress due to lack of preparation. One of the great innovators, Benjamin Franklin said “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” Based largely on your target market, begin to look for people interested in taking part in beta testing. The feedback of the first users is the more useful than any feedback received later. It allows the tester to share the features and functions they feel the most necessary for their enjoyment.

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One Month to Launch Date

With all the beta testers in place and the completion of the application, deploy on a beta server and pay close attention to feedback. All while receiving feedback, the marketing plan should be the main focus of your day to day time for the month leading up to launch day. Social Media plays a prominent role in a startup’s success. Begin by posting fun stories and updates on progress to gain traction. Before deciding to either pay money for a marketing team or a personal marketing plan, do everything possible to gain free publicity. Sending articles to popular tech blogs is an incredibly powerful marketing tool if done correctly. Tech blogs will not typically post an article that appears to entirely contain a plug for your specific company. Although, if you attack a particular angle of a problem that your product solves then your article has a chance to be posted bringing tons of traction to your upcoming product. Now well marketed and tested, make the final small alterations to your product you feel necessary for success.

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Launch Day

The greatest day of your entrepreneurial career is nigh! If properly planned for and executed, launch day will be a breeze. Your team has honed in on problems and solutions in your product, and have hopefully anticipated the challenges associated with a larger user base than in your beta testing phase. However, all the preparation in the world can’t predict some of the challenges that can strike after launching. Here are some precautions to ensure a smooth progression after launch:

  1. If your product has a considerable threat of needing alteration shortly after launch, make sure you have a responsive development team on board that can act fast.

  2. Don’t stop marketing just because your product has launched. Even after a successful launch, not every product continues on an upward trajectory without additional input. Ongoing campaigns ensure constant exposure to your product.
  3. Keep responding to feedback. Fast turnover on desired features not only improves your product, but shows users that their input matters. Beta testing is your first but definitely not your last large-scale examination of what people want. The most important thing to ensuring a product’s success is showing continued enthusiasm and motivation towards creating the best user experience. Stay prepared for whatever bumps in the road you may come across but always remember you’re living your dream every day.