The Beta

The hardest part of launching wasn't building the app. It was getting twelve people to open it.

I spent months on Cubby. The architecture, the design system, a hundred small decisions. None of that was the hard part.

The hard part was a number: twelve invited, five installed.

I sent my first testers a personal invitation. These were people who had said yes, who wanted to help. More than half never got past the email. One opened it two dozen times. A few opened it here and there. Several never opened it at all.

That gap has a name in the industry, the activation funnel, but you do not need the jargon to feel it. Every step between "I'd love to try that" and "I actually opened it" loses people. Downloading is a step. Signing in is a step. Finding the thing you were promised is a step. At each one a few people quietly fall away, and none of them are being rude. Life is busy, and your app is not their priority the way it is yours.

I am living the sequel right now on Android. To put Cubby in Google's store, I need a group of testers to install it and keep it for two straight weeks before I'm allowed to go live. Not sign up. Install, and stay. So the whole job this month is not code. It is the unglamorous work of asking real people, one at a time, to do a small favor, and then actually getting them to do it.

Here is the lesson, and it holds whether you are shipping software or launching anything at all: building the thing and getting the thing used are two different jobs. Most of us are good at the first and assume the second takes care of itself. It does not. A great product with no testers is a rehearsal in an empty theater.

The fix is not clever. It is closer to the ground than any founder wants to admit. Make the ask small and specific. Remove every step you can, so the link goes straight to the thing and not to a homepage. Follow up without apologizing for following up. And count honestly. "Twelve invited, five installed" is not a number to hide. It is the real shape of the work, and seeing the shape is how you get to twelve.

I would rather learn from the five who showed up than flatter myself with the twelve who said yes.

I write Building in the Open about designing and shipping a real product in public, one honest week at a time.

Join the Android test (about 30 seconds): https://lnkd.in/gMzd-dX5 See

what it's about: https://cubbyplaylist.com On

an iPhone? It's live here: https://lnkd.in/gSEsH8Q7