A few weeks ago I started working on a project called “OpenLaunch”, the idea was for creators and entrepreneurs to share progress on their projects in real time, by writing comprehensive write-ups for other people to read.
In exchange, the creators would have a community of similarly minded people to hold them accountable, provide them with feedback as they progress, and potentially become early adopters of the final product.
While I was working on it, I wanted to “drink my own champagne”, so I made sure I documented every step from getting the idea to launching the MVP.
Ideation
Every project I worked on for the past years was some kind of software/app to perform some kind of task. I’ve always felt like this was the only way I could provide value to others, I didn’t think I could provide value through blog articles, books, or videos/audio, it had to be a software or an app every time. A month ago, I got an email saying IndieHackers was acquired by stripe! I was so impressed, considering they did all of it in less than a year, and unlike everything I launched, the idea was simple, and so was the technical aspect of the project. The challenging work was in the content they provided ( Interviews with founders ).
That day, I promised myself the next thing I was going to work on, was going to provide value in a similar format ( Content / Text ). I’ve also never worked on a project for entrepreneurs/solo-founders and potentially developers, so that was also something IH inspired me to do. I definitely didn’t want to do an IH clone though, so I had to take a few days off to think of something and do some research.
Most the research I did was browsing the communities like /r/entrepreneur, HN, IH forum ect, to get a sense of what all these people were having a problem with, it also helped that I’m an active reader of all these communities. I did the research for about 3 days, on and off, and every time a particular problem pops up more than a few times, I’d take note of it and add a counter that I update every time I encounter the same problem again.
Here’s the final list of relevant problems I uncovered :
- I need feedback for my MVP or LP ( 20+ )
- How do I get the first 100 users after launching ( 10 )
- How do I stay motivated to complete/launch projects ( 7 )
So basically, I had to come up with a solution for one or more of those problems, without it being a technical/automated solution. It had to be delivered through a simple site, and all the value had to be provided in a simple format like text/images/audio/video.
The next few days, I came up with about 10 ideas, including podcasts and blogs, but ultimately none of those really convinced me to get started. On the next day, I was starting to consider dropping this and taking a break from development, side projects and basically all of it. I even checked out some nice destinations I’d like to visit.
But then later on at night, I came up with this :
A place where entrepreneurs, founders and developers can get feedback, early adopters, and a ton of motivation just by sharing their journey with the community.
If that’s not clear enough, here’s a more detailed breakdown of the concept : OpenLaunch is kind of like a two-sided marketplace, it has two distinct user groups
- Writers ( Entrepreneurs, Devs and Founders ) : They provide the content of the site that the readers are looking for.
- Readers : They consume the content provided by the writers
The content provided by the writers is as follow :
A collection of comprehensive write-ups about what goes into building and launching a new product/app/business, described in real time as the project is being built/launched, and later on updated. This is called an “Open Launch”.
Which begs the question, what incentive do the writers have to invest time in writing an OpenLaunch for their projects ?
Here’s my answer :
- Feedback from the readers, as they are building the project
- Early users/subscribers for the project ( Some of the readers )
- Accountability to all the readers, which in my opinion ( to be validated ), increases motivation to finish/launch the project
And that was enough for me to actually get started on the validation phase.
Validation
I purchased the openlaunch domain right away, and started writing a plan to validate my ideas, it looked like something like this :
- Define what an openLaunch is, and give it a structure
- Set up a landing page and a mailing list
- Start a new small project, and document the journey in real time, using the structure defined
- Post the write-ups to reddit in real time.
- Get Feedback and validate the following : - Readers enjoy the write-ups and subscribe for more - Openly documenting the process does help with motivation - Readers and followers of the project give valuable feedback - Readers and followers of the project do become early-adopters of the project after launch day
And that’s exactly what I did, and it worked out pretty great, even better than what I expected.
I ended up building and launching a new product, in less than 10 days, got 120 free signups and 1 paid signup right after launch, as well as a ton of valuable feedback along the way. Not to mention the 300+ subscribers to the mailing list, and the extremely low number of unsubscribes after sending 5 emails.
you can find all the write-ups of that openLaunch, over here :
The final MVP for that openLaunch is available over here : Savvit.io , it’s a tool to organize and browse through the most saved posts on Reddit.
MVP
While I was going through the validation stage, and the reddit posts picked up some traction, I started getting a few messages from other founders/developers asking if there is a way for them to do an openLaunch about their own projects.
So I wrote a quick guide, outlining the structure of an openLaunch and describing how they should do the write-up and sent it to those guys. I also took two hours to contact some other people who just launched a new project, and explained the concept to them and asked if they wanted to turn their project into an openLaunch, most of them were very glad to do this! I then sent my “guide” ( Which is just a .Docx document they fill with info about the project + the write-ups for each stage ) to 20 people, some had contacted me after following up on my own openLaunch, while others I contacted myself and had never heard of openLaunch before.
The idea was for me to start working on a better MVP for openLaunch.io, while these guys worked on creating the content, so that I’d have at least a few openLaunch projects available on the site when I launch.
So every few days, when I get some time, I just email these guys to follow up on their progress and get some feedback. A few stopped responding right after I sent the guide, most emailed me back a few days later saying they are too busy with their own project and would like to do this later on, and the remaining 4 are currently working on it and have kept me posted of their progress.
At the same time, I was building the openLaunch platform, and once again I didn’t have enough time since I wanted to get it ready before the write-ups were ready, so that the founders can see the final result and give me some feedback on it before launching to the public.
Originally, I wanted to build a full MVP that would allow anyone to just sign up, and start submitting/updating write-ups, so my use-case diagram or features list looked something like this : - Sign up using social networks - Create new openLaunch projects - Individually fill and save each stage of the openLaunch on an easy-to-use interface - Submit openLaunch for approval - Comment on other openLaunches - Ask other openLaunch owners for updates - Follow users
Halfway through it, after spending days on the interface, I realized that this was not how an MVP should be, and that I was investing way too much time on features I wasn’t sure about :
I had no idea if the current structure for an openLaunch will work for everyone, I wasn’t sure I wanted everyone to be able to create an openLaunch right from the start, and so many other small questions would pop off every time I started working on a specific feature.
So I reimagined the features list for a true MVP : - Sign in using social networks - Comment on openLaunches - Submit project ( But only the general info about the project, I’ll personally contact anyone who submitted their project and will provide everything they need to start working on the openLaunch. I’ll publish/update the result on the site manually ).
Using PHP and Laravel as a framework, I was able to build the MVP in three days.
It has a FAQ page to explain to new visitors what openLaunch is about, a landing page targeting both user groups ( Readers and Writers - Thanks to /u/ShaneAtSynapse for helping out with this ), and a submit project page. I also had to set up an administration panel to keep an eye on newly submitted project, and new comments.
I still have to add the openLaunch for savvit.io to the site, and wait on the other founders to complete their write-ups so I can add those as well before officially launching openLaunch.io
Launch
Only one founder delivered his write-up, the site now has 3 projects documented.
Thanks to the posts about Savvit.io on reddit, I already had about 400 subscribers interested in hearing more about openLaunch.io. That’s a pretty awesome feeling, knowing you don’t have to worry about getting initial feedback and having people waiting to hear from you.
Today, I posted what you’re currently reading, and sent an email to the subscribers to tell them about the new projects added to OpenLaunch.io.
Feedback
Now that I’ve officially launched the OpenLaunch site, I need as much feedback as I can. If you have questions or any remarks/advice, please don’t hesitate to share.
If not, you can still help out by answering the following questions : 1 - Would you like to see more of these “OpenLaunch” projects from other founders ? If not, why not ? 2 - What are you thoughts on the format of an OpenLaunch (Ideation -> Validation -> MVP -> Launch ) ? 3 - If you have projects of your own, would you want to turn them into an OpenLaunch ? If not, why not ?
You can also subscribe to the newsletter to get the latest OpenLaunch projects once a week over here : https://OpenLaunch.io
Thank you for reading!
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