You launched your product, now what?
I'm a senior product manager (+8 years of experience) and entrepreneur.
I want to share a few tips for those who launched their first product, are receiving the first users and feedback, and are wondering what to do next.
Here’s how to keep your product thriving:
- Listen to customer feedback (it’s gold);
- Test small;
- Improve the product based on signals;
- Market your changes like a pro.
So, here are how...
1. Listen to customer feedback
Customer feedback
You can interview your customers or use some forms.
Dig their current behavior with questions like: "How did you buy your last pair of jeans?".
Avoid entering imaginary scenarios as we're very good at deceiving ourselves.
Try to understand their thoughts about the features they love, the issues they face, and what’s missing.
If you already have support tickets, identify recurring complaints or feature requests.
The most powerful and cheap tool is to stay close to your customers.
Have a goal to talk with AT LEAST one customer weekly.
Product metrics
Use product engagement metrics, like retention rates to understand if the users are coming back.
If they sign up, use just a little bit, and don't come back, you have a problem.
If you don't know about it, google about product stickeness metrics. It's a great indicator!
You can use user behavior data too, and collect using tools like Hotjar or Mixpanel.
Identify patterns, especially the painful ones, like drop-off points in the flow (sign-ups but no engagement).
2. Test small and 3. Improve the product based on signals
So you find an opportunity in your customer discovery process!
It's a small and inexpensive improvement, like adding a new email to your onboarding sequence? Go ahead!
If it's a big mega blaster feature, like a new AI (everything is now, no problem kk), STOP! What you want is to reduce risk and uncertainty.
- Define your feature scope;
- Identify the assumptions with the least evidence and the most risk;
- Create small prototypes for those assumptions;
- Test with your customers;
- Collect feedback;
- If you have a good signal, go ahead and improve your prototype. If it's uncertain yet, repeat the process;
- Repeat this until the next iteration is almost the same effort to develop the whole feature
To be honest, this process is more important when you have a big team and big costs involved.
If you are a solopreneur or a small team and can build an entire product using AI tools in a few weeks, the analysis is different.
4. Market your changes like a pro
A common mistake, made in big startups too, is to forget to market especially for your customer database the product changes.
- Have a monthly product updates email. There are a lot ideas on big famous products that you can steal
- It's a big new? Do a webinar for your customers. You can use this to attract new potential customers too
Don’t let your product get stuck in “Launch Day” mode!
What’s your biggest challenge post-launch?