hey everyone
building my first real product (file converter app) and honestly have no idea what im doing
the journey so far:
– put up a landing page last week
– posted on LinkedIn a few times
– got ~25 email signups which felt good
– then someone pointed out my app looks "untrusted" because i haven't code signed it yet
– also got called out for ai-generated posts (oops)
so now im like… do i wait to get everything perfect before launching? or just ship and iterate?
current blockers:
– need apple developer account ($99)
– need windows code signing ($300)
– probably need to test way more than i have
– messaging feels off (people asking why not just use free tools)
the app: basically converts files offline so nothing uploads to random servers. $9 one time payment vs competitors charging monthly
questions for people who've launched stuff:
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how much testing is enough before you ship?
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did you wait for code signing / "perfect" or just launch?
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how do you position against free alternatives without sounding desperate?
trying not to overthink this but also don't want to launch something half-baked that nobody trusts
any advice appreciated. even brutal honesty helps at this point
First product lunch, kinda freaking out
byu/Asterix_Optimum inEntrepreneur
Posted by Asterix_Optimum
2 Comments
Just ship it dude. The fact that you got 25 signups already means people want it
The code signing thing is real though – people will straight up not download unsigned software these days. I’d bite the bullet on the $99 Apple one at least since that’s easier to get
For positioning against free tools, privacy is actually a solid angle. “Your files never leave your computer” hits different than “it’s free but we upload everything to our servers.” Don’t overthink the messaging, just be clear about what you do differently
You can always iterate after launch but you can’t iterate if nobody can actually use your app
Launching is always a mix of excitement and oh crap moments lol.
Honestly that first product launch is a trip, I remember doing my first one and just being so lost.
On the perfect vs ship debate, Id say ship and iterate. Youll never get it perfect before launch, trust me. Plus real user feedback is way more valuable than endless internal testing.
The code signing thing is tricky. It does add trust, but maybe you can launch a beta version without it and clearly state that its unsigned. Gauge the reaction.
Positioning against free alternatives is the real challenge though. You gotta hammer home the offline thing. People do care about privacy, even if they dont always realize it. Maybe highlight the security aspect in your landing page copy?
With my first app, getting the first users was super hard, what ended up working was finding all the threads of people asking questions related to it on Reddit and dropping a helpful answer, if they needed the app they would end up using it.
It was a slow process, super time consuming but it worked great. It eventually led my app to rank on gpt search for a few queries thanks to Reddit being used as a source, it now gets daily downloads with 0 marketing.
The only issue is how time consuming it is, I used F5 Bot and it would take hours to go through all the notifications (most days I wouldnt go through them all).
So I built an internal tool which is now my main project and led me to neglect my old app, it automatically finds relevant conversations across Reddit, X and LinkedIn, its what brought me here.
It lets you engage with your target audience directly, and in Reddit, it gives you good potential to gain passionate users as Reddit users tend to be deep into their niche.
I wish I had it when I was launching my app, could have saved me so much time.
If you think it can help you scale, Ill be happy to share it