1.5 years later we have finally launched our first product. Here’s what I’ve learned.

Hi Product Hunt, Clayton here. After endless hours of work and late nights we have finally launched. How does it feel? Amazing. I know a product hunt launch in the grand scheme of things is just a drop in the bucket, but for our team it’s a milestone. We set the goal to launch over a year ago and it’s finally here. Here are some of the I’ve learned: Building a product from scratch isn’t easy. In fact it’s incredibly hard. There’s so much to it that I never would have imagined going into this. Things don’t just magically work and often times they take a long time to figure out. What you think you should build isn’t always what your customers need. Get users on early and listen to them. We delayed our launch initially to further develop to meet our users need. This was worth it. Acquiring your first customers is difficult. Just because you build a cool doesn’t mean people will sign up. You have to connect with them and show them you’ve built a solution. Cool apps don’t sell, solutions do. Talk to as many founders as you can. This has been one of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned. It doesn’t matter what they launched, they likely have some advice that applies to you. Listen and take what they have to offer. Finally, have fun with it. This has been the most challenging thing I’ve ever done, but I’ve had a blast. I’ve learned more the last year than I have in 10 years working in my career and university combined and met some truly incredible people along the way. If you’ve read this so far, thank you for taking the time to do so. If you want to see what we built, check out Respired.io in the launch section today. It’s an AI powered social media management that focuses on the core part of social media management - the strategy. We perform a comprehensive analysis of your brand to provide relevant suggestions to create a cohesive, multichannel feed with very little effort. Thank you Product Hunt for all of the support and advice the last few months, I’m a community member for life now. The journey is just beginning!