Your MVP just launched. The next 30 days determine whether it gains traction or fades into obscurity. Here's what to focus on when everything feels urgent.
May 27, 2024 6 min read
The first 30 days after launch are simultaneously exhilarating and terrifying. Your product is in the hands of real users. Everything seems urgent. Every bug feels critical. Every feature request sounds reasonable.
This is where focus matters most. The founders who succeed in this period don't try to do everything—they do the right things.
This guide covers what to prioritize in your first month post-launch and, equally important, what to ignore.
Week 1: Stabilization
Your first week has one priority: make sure the product works.
Monitor Everything
If you didn't set up monitoring before launch, do it now:
Error tracking: Know when things break (Sentry, LogRocket, etc.)
Uptime monitoring: Know when the site is down
Basic analytics: Know if people are using it
Performance monitoring: Know if it's slow
You can't fix problems you don't know about. Get visibility before anything else.
Fix Critical Bugs Only
Not all bugs are equal. In week one, fix only bugs that:
Prevent users from completing core actions
Cause data loss or security issues
Affect a large percentage of users
That annoying alignment issue on mobile? It can wait. The checkout flow that fails for 20% of users? That's week one priority.
Support Every Early User
Your first users are precious. They believed in something unproven. Treat them accordingly:
Not all early users are equally important. Identify:
Power users: Who uses it most? What are they doing?
Successful users: Who got value? What did they do differently?
Churned users: Who left? Can you learn why?
Your product roadmap should serve successful users, not edge cases.
Separate Signal From Noise
You'll receive lots of feedback. Not all of it matters. Pattern recognition matters more than individual data points.
Week 3: Iteration
With understanding comes the ability to improve meaningfully.
Prioritize Ruthlessly
You've gathered feedback, identified issues, and have a list of possible improvements. Now prioritize:
Do first (this week): Fixes that affect most users, improvements that unblock core value delivery, quick wins with outsized impact.
Do next (coming weeks): Features validated by multiple users, polish that affects first impressions, performance and reliability improvements.
Maybe later: Nice-to-have features, edge case handling, advanced functionality.
Probably never: Features one user requested, rebuilding things that work, adding complexity without clear benefit.
Ship Small, Ship Often
Resist the urge to batch changes into big releases. Small, frequent updates reduce risk of breaking things, provide faster feedback loops, keep momentum visible, and allow quick reversal if something fails.
Aim for something shipping every few days, not a big release in three weeks.
Close the Feedback Loop
When you fix something a user reported: Tell them it's fixed, ask if it solves their problem, and thank them for the feedback. This converts critics into advocates and validates that your fix actually worked.
Week 4: Foundation
The final week of month one is about setting up sustainable operations.
Establish Metrics
By day 30, you should know:
Daily/Weekly Active Users: How many people use the product?
Retention: What percentage return after day 1, day 7?
Core action completion: What percentage complete the main value action?
Error rate: What percentage of sessions have problems?
These become your north star metrics for month two and beyond.
Monthly: Evaluate progress against goals, adjust strategy
Plan Month Two
Based on what you learned, plan the next 30 days: What are the biggest problems to solve? What features are validated enough to build? What can you ignore? What experiments do you want to run?
Written plans prevent drift and keep focus clear.
What to Ignore (For Now)
The hardest part of month one is deciding what not to do.
Feature Requests From Non-Users
People who haven't used your product have opinions about what it should do. These opinions are noise. Focus on people who are actually using it.
Competitive Feature Parity
Your competitor has Feature X and you don't. So what? If your users aren't asking for it, it doesn't matter yet.
Perfect Code Quality
Your codebase will have technical debt. That's fine. Month one isn't about code beauty—it's about learning and retention.
Scaling Infrastructure
Unless you have an actual scaling problem (congrats!), don't optimize for theoretical future load. Build for 10x current usage, not 1000x.
Fundraising
If you're trying to close users and investors simultaneously in month one, you're probably doing neither well. Focus on users.
Vanity Metrics
Press coverage, Twitter followers, and Product Hunt rankings feel good but don't determine success. Retention and revenue do.
Common Month One Mistakes
Building Features Instead of Fixing Onboarding
If users aren't converting or retaining, more features won't help. Focus on why the current features aren't delivering value before adding new ones.
Ignoring Qualitative Feedback
Analytics tell you what. Conversations tell you why. Both matter. Founders who only look at dashboards miss crucial context.
Trying to Please Everyone
Early users have diverse needs. You can't satisfy all of them. Pick your core user and optimize for them.
What Success Looks Like at Day 30
By the end of month one, a healthy product shows:
User Signals
Some users return regularly (even if not many)
Core actions are being completed
Word-of-mouth is happening (even small scale)
Engagement is improving, not declining
Learning Signals
You understand why users use (or don't use) the product
You've identified the top 3-5 problems to solve
You have a clear picture of your best users
Your mental model of the product has evolved
Key Takeaways
The first 30 days after launch determine trajectory. Make them count.
Week 1: Get the product stable. Fix only critical bugs. Support every early user.
Week 2: Understand how people actually use it. Talk to users. Find patterns.
Week 3: Iterate based on what you learned. Ship small and often.
Week 4: Establish sustainable operations and plan month two.
Month one is about learning, not winning. The winners are the founders who learn fastest and apply those lessons.
At NextBuild, we support founders through the critical post-launch period with ongoing development and iteration support. If you've just launched and want help navigating month one, let's talk.
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