Ask HN: What type of growth should I expect after launch?

[ssangani]

We are 10 months into our first startup journey. We launched our product last week. We got 15+ sign-ups so far. One user who ran into some bugs but enjoying the product so far. The signs seem encouraging.

My co-founder has been without a corporate job for a little over a yar and burning through savings. Assuming 30% profit margin and $15 subscription, we would need over 4k paid customers to even come close to what a corporate job would pay. I'm not sure what we could do to achieve such growth.

Should we consider fund-raising?

[neo4llm]

Former YC CEO Michael Seibel has a wonderful video that might help you a LOT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dgmmje5WHWA

[ssangani]

This is making me really nervous.

I don't know how to tell if we have product market fit or not. My co-founder believes we have product market fit. My co-founder talked to 10 people when he was researching. 5 people showed strong interest and we started developing. We aren't tracking any metrics. KPIs haven't been defined yet. We have had many instances where a single opinion changed the design/requirements.

[existencebox]

I take a very mechanical view on this, but take this with a grain of salt as my success has been "banal" at best. You have people paying you for your product. This is more fit than most people achieve.

Some good advice I heard is to find and focus on a KPI that aligns with the sort of use that'd indicate healthy consumption of your product+costs, with a guiding principle of "if people are paying us and using it with a trendline moving the right direction, we're succeeding."

Have you thought about what you'd need to do to get more users/get more eyes? (Presuming you've proven enough traction+lack of churn from existing users that it wouldn't be premature) Similarly, are you talking to users who find value in your product and identifying ways you could provide more value?

I personally see tons of potential avenues for growth given what you've said; but obviously saying this ignorant of much of the reality on the ground so take it with a major grain of salt.

[ssangani]

Ok, that's a good point. We are offering 2 week free trial, so I think we will know a little more next week. We have been using ads to drive traffic to our site. We are spending like $2 per sign-up and not sure how sustainable it will be in long run. We are thinking of conferences or community events where we can meet more users. We want to talk to more users and get more feedback, but I'm not sure how to approach this.