First 2 weeks with numbers

Exactly two weeks ago, I launched Flipp – the API tool for automated image generation. Here are the results of how those 2 (and two extra) weeks went so far for me.

Pre-launch

Two weeks before the launch, I made an announcement on my Twitter. Even though I didn't have huge following numbers, it went pretty well.

• 16.000 impressions
• 66 likes
• 13 retweets
• 100 sign-ups for the waiting list

The launch is going to be massive – I thought (haha, no).

Launch day

On March 9th, I launched the product. I posted on Twitter and sent some emails to the waiting list. Here go the first disappointment and the first motivation.

By the end of the launch day, I only had 20 sign-ups. Most of them came from the tweet directly and never opted for awaiting list. The initial traffic also was even worse than from the announcement tweet. I think that's because I posted to Flipp's account first, which almost didn't have any followers at the moment, and retweeted it from my primary account that had about 1500 followers. The first mistake is made 😉

Good news, I got the first paying customer. The idea is validated, there's still room for a new name among the big ones.

Extra launch

At the end of the week, March 14th, I launched a free fancy feature on Product Hunt, which just failed. Yeah, I just picked the worst day possible for the most theoretically-hyped feature.

The last time I launched a product on Product Hunt, it gave me about 4000 visitors with almost 400 upvotes. This time I only got like 70 upvotes with ~100 visits. I blame Sunday because the next day brought me 80 more upvotes and some extra traffic without even being on the front page.

But there's no bad news without good ones. The next day I shipped another great feature which helped me to get the second customer, who is already widely using it on his website. Almost 300 images generated for him so far!

Building in public

The main advantage of building on public is that you keep the attention around your business without being annoying and having to advertise it directly. When you ship a feature, preview a shiny piece of the UI, or post about solving complex problems, people share it and help you spread the word. And your business grows while you grow.

Big up for the early customers who save me from massive anxiety and keep me motivated!

Numbers

Here are the numbers of how Flipp is doing so far:

• 1000 images generated
• $936 ARR
• 100 daily visits, mostly from my Twitter
• 80 trial users
• 3 almost-paying customers. Hope to get them on board in the coming week
• 2 paying customers

The things could be (way) better, but they also could be worse. So, I'm happy with what I have so far.

Moving forward

That said, I'm on the way to cross $1000 ARR, which is a second milestone. The third one requires a little more effort and patience – it probably won't be that easy to 12x the revenue that quick 😄 But I'll try my best!

Those two weeks were such an emotional rollercoaster for me, and I already learned some important lessons. Let's keep moving and see what happens next.