I launched Aurelius last week. Here are a some notes on how I launched, how it went, and how I would launch products in the future.
How I Launched
I had already made a list of places I wanted to post. First was HackerNews. I've never posted anything there so it was nerve-wracking. I spent nearly 30 minutes writing and editing my Show HN post.
The other places I posted were Discord servers. I built Aurelius with Remix and I used a library called Evolu for its local-first features. Both had communities on Discord and a place to showcase community projects. I also posted on Jason Lengstrof's Discord server, primarily because I like his live streams and he's an advocate for building side projects.
All of this happened on the evening of October 13 — a Sunday — which was my first mistake. Launching on a Sunday evening did not help in getting traffic. Most people are not looking to try new products on a Sunday evening. They're relaxing, as I usually am. I wanted to launch earlier in the weekend. But a few bugs came up during my last-minute testing and I didn't want to postpone the launch. So I did it anyway.
How It Went
On Monday, I started getting more traffic from all the places I posted. Since I launched on HackerNews, Aurelius was picked up by a bunch of "Show HN" aggregators and feeds. These sites added some more traffic. I also got some feedback from people who tried Aurelius out.
I also launched on two more platforms — IndieHackers and Peerlist. IndieHackers has a new ProductHunt-like feature where users can launch their products. Aurelius did pretty well here and I ended up in 4th place. I think. I didn't catch the end of the voting period and there's no way that I know of to see the history of product launches.
On Peerlist, I didn't get much traffic on Monday, which is their launch day. Over the next few days, I kept getting a few visits each day. Aurelius was still in the last position. But on Friday, Peerlist featured Aurelius on their home page. This shot up the visits and upvotes and currently Aurelius is #11 on the list. On Friday, Aurelius was also featured in the latest edition of Local-First Newsletter.
Lessons Learned
Launching a product is not a one-day activity. It doesn't start on the day I decide to release it to the public. It's a process that starts long before that. While I was building Aurelius, I never shared the things I was doing online. I only talked about it with a couple of friends. Looking back, I should have shared more. This is something I always have trouble with. I always hesitate to fire off a quick post on X or record a short video about the things I'm building. Even reading a book — Show Your Work — didn't fix it (maybe I should read it again). Showing work is a habit like any other and it is built one post at a time.
Even with my mistakes, I'm quite happy with how the launch went. Typical of product launches, the traffic gradually reduced to a handful over the week. If any of those visitors liked it they'll keep using it. If not, that's fine with me. I know at least one person who will use it regularly.
That brings me to the primary and the most important reason I launched Aurelius. It's not to get people to use it, although that's nice to have. I launched it so I can say that I shipped something. While I have been juggling different side projects for the past few years, I never actually shipped anything. I had developed a fear of shipping, of putting the things I built out in the open for people to see. It was easier to build.
But this launch reinforces my confidence in finishing my side projects. And this will be the first small step in building and launching more.