Quick Quiz: When Did Google Launch?
Michael Seibel asks this question to rooms full of founders. Nobody remembers the day Google launched. Or Facebook. Or Twitter.
These are the biggest tech companies on earth. Nobody remembers their launch day. So why are you obsessing over yours?
A lot of founders have this misconception about launching. Launches aren't special.
Two Types of Launch
Seibel splits it up. There's the 'get any customers' launch and the 'press launch.' Push the press launch off. Pull the customer launch way up.
Your goal right now is to get anyone using your product. Not to get written about. Not to get buzz.
Get some initial customers. Get anyone using your product. You don't need a vision for getting everyone.
You Can't Learn From Nobody
You can talk to potential customers all day. You can research until your eyes bleed. But until someone uses your actual product, you have zero data.
Put something in front of people. If it doesn't solve their problem, you'll know right away. That's worth more than a thousand pitch decks.
You can't really learn anything until users are interacting with a real product.