Hi friend,

This week was officially launch week for Govalo, and I’m so excited to have it out in the world now. Seeing merchants interact with our app and provide positive (and constructive!) feedback is so cool. In the agency world, we launch new websites all the time, but they’re for specific clients and specific contracts. Once this app was released to the world, it was available to anyone and everyone.

This entire week will be one to remember well into the future. So much preparation went into our launch day, and while not every single thing went as planned, the day completely exceeded our expectations.

So this week I want to talk about a few things that helped me prepare for the launch day (and week) of Govalo in case you’re preparing for your own launch day.

Don’t rush your launch. We wanted to launch Govalo in August. Then in September. There are probably some things we could’ve skipped in our MVP to launch earlier. We probably also could’ve skipped some testing to ship faster. While it’s exciting to finally get to that finish line, don’t rush it. As soon as it’s out of your hands, your customers will find bugs you never thought to find. Every single time. But proper testing will allow you to catch most of them before they have a chance to reach users.

Be your own fireworks display. Don’t expect the world to drop whatever they’re doing to check out what you’ve built and congratulate you. You have to be your own cheerleader through this process. Expecting a glorious display of congratulations and great jobs can be a recipe for disappointment. Be proud of what you’ve built.

Prepare for feedback – and don’t expect all of it to be positive. There will always be people who just don’t want to see you succeed or think they can do better than you. Some people get threatened by success when they themselves don’t have it. I almost got into an argument on Twitter with someone who was saying he could build it for cheaper. If you can, great! I welcome the competition. You’re going to get feedback on your launch from multiple angles: how it looks, what it costs, how it functions. You may or may not agree with all of it, and that’s fine. But don’t take this feedback personally. Evaluate whether or not it’s constructive, and if it is, write it down so you can address it. If it’s not constructive, shove it out of your mind and move on.

Take it easy the next day. I was awake a little before 6 AM to prepare for a 9 AM launch for Govalo and definitely did not get a good night’s sleep the night before launch. We were actively talking about Govalo all day, all through dinner, and then again in the evening. To say we were exhausted afterward is an understatement. Launch day adrenaline is a thing! Keep your schedule light the day after your launch so you have time to decompress and perhaps address some bugs that others may have found for your app.

Launching a new product is extremely exciting, but it’s important to take care of yourself during this process.

Until next week,

Kelly