Launching a product in just 3652 days

Although I have done pretty well at actually launching various projects (5 to date) only one has gotten any traction (200-400 users a day). The one with traction hasn't seen any growth and I haven't been able to figure a good path to spur growth or generate revenue.

That being said, I still really liked this article. Even though I do launch things, I think that there is a more subtle piece I am missing. One thought I've had lately is that I get a lot of satisfaction out of building something and launching it. When the idea initially pops in my head, I ride that feverish wave of emotion throughout the development process. I think if I could spend more time and develop some sort of process or methodology to validate the idea I could take the next step.

I think it's that the thought of "validating the idea" seems less fun than building it and a little murky (as far as I don't have a clear idea about how to do it) so I just skip it and figure the shotgun approach to building products will eventually hit. :)

Urgh. I really need more motivation to finish my current project! Always just one or two more features from finishing, then some bug comes up that throws me back and i get disheartened.

Worst part, i have alpha testers, and damn their patient for a new version, i sometimes wish they would complain to make me get into that 'i gotta get this part updated asap' mood again.

Edit:

Hmm after reading the article, i really need to redo my landing page. Get an option there to get on a mailing list.

Complete rewrites are bad. An approach we follow is to rewrite a small section of our product and release that to our users. With React, we can separate everything (repo, tests, architecture) from the core product but still integrate the new version within the app. It is like replacing the parts in a car one by one until you have a completely new car.

It takes a long time to learn how to write code in this way.

The current project I'm on is probably the antithesis of this. I wouldn't be able to figure out how to replace anything without rewriting at least 5 other interconnected bits.

So my guess is that some people actually never learn this...

Thanks for posting your story its made my day :) I'm studying in Joensuu, Finland. About 70km from Kitee where Nightwish originated.