I thought the launch failed, then I woke up

Issue #40

Hey! I’m Alyssa X, a serial entrepreneur who’s built 12+ products solo. This email is part of my maker journey, which you’re subscribed to. Feel free to forward it to others if you find it interesting! You can support me through GitHub Sponsors, I’d really appreciate it! ❤️

Hey all,

It’s been a few weeks since Screenity Pro launched publicly (!!) and I wanted to share a little behind the scenes: what worked, what flopped, and what it actually felt like.

A launch that felt like a Tuesday

I left the last issue in a bit of a cliffhanger, but the truth is, nothing dramatic happened (thankfully).

The Chrome extension update didn’t go out instantly, unlike a normal web deploy. Extensions only update in certain situations, like closing all tabs or restarting the browser. So most people didn’t get the new version right away. Which, to be honest, wasn’t the worst thing. It gave me some breathing room, and time to tweak things if needed.

Still, it felt a bit anti-climactic. I was onboarding some new users, sure, but it didn’t really feel like a launch. More of a slow drip, stretched out over time.

Landing page experiments

While the extension was doing its… thing, I decided to turn my attention to the landing page.

I hadn’t done much SEO on it, but somehow it always quietly brought in a surprising amount of traffic. A mix of people searching “free screen recorder”, “privacy-friendly Loom alternative”, or entire school departments recommending it to their students. It added up.

So I kept the main landing page focused on the free extension, at least for now. That’s what most people knew Screenity for, and what they were actively searching for. Plus, it was working: the page drove a ton of installs. I figured if people started using the extension, they’d eventually learn about Pro too.

Still… it bugged me that Pro was barely mentioned. You had to scroll like halfway down the page to even notice it existed.

So I came up with a tiny, slightly ridiculous solution: a little label next to the main CTA saying “Want to share your videos?” that did a little wiggle on hover. Silly, but hey, it worked 🤷‍♀️

Even then, I was getting a lot of visits to the Pro page, but barely any conversions.

I had a countdown at first, early access pricing, a little “get in now” pressure. But it didn’t seem to do much. I eventually stripped it back to just a simple button, less chaos. Still not doing much better though…

Some people messaged me asking if they could just try it. And at first, I kind of shrugged that off. Pro has real costs, with video rendering, bandwidth, storage… and I was worried a trial would mean losing money on people who might never pay.

But eventually, I caved and added a free trial. I figured… why not? I wasn’t getting that many sign-ups anyway, and realistically, people testing it out weren’t going to wreck my server bills.

And… it worked. Slowly, I started getting a steady stream of new users. Turns out if you let people try before buying, they don’t just bail. Some cancelled, sure, but a lot stuck around, and many actually converted. I guess a little trust goes a long way.

Go big, or go home

I finally posted about it publicly, which I had been dreading. I guess I was scared it would flop.

I hadn’t posted anything in a year, and the Internet felt different since then, noisier, faster, scarier. I wasn’t sure anybody would even see it, let alone care. Still, I wrote the post, set it out across a few accounts, and closed the tab. Done.

At first, barely anyone engaged. As the hours passed, I figured, well, at least I did it. I can get back to work, think through what’s next. Slowly though, people started sharing it, replying, adding their thoughts. A few at first, then a bit more. I wasn’t getting signups though. In fact, I’d been getting more organically before the post. I assumed most people were on their phones and weren’t going to be subscribing from there. Fair enough, I guess.

By the time I went to bed, I had mixed feelings. The last thing I saw was someone being… less than kind about it, which left a sour taste. But I thought, whatever, I hadn’t posted in ages, probably messed up the timing, that’s life.

The next morning, I checked my phone half-asleep, and saw the first “Subscription created” email. Then another. And another. I’d set up Paddle to send me notifications, mostly for fun, but now I was scrolling, and they just kept coming.

Excitement hit first, followed by anxiety. I rushed to my laptop, checked the servers. Everything looked fine. Phew. Then I opened Twitter (okay, X) and saw it for myself. The post had blown up overnight.

Had it actually… worked? After all those months of late nights, bugs, rewrites, and near-burnout, was this the moment it finally paid off?

Maybe. Maybe not. But I’m so grateful to everyone who reached out, shared it, supported it, even quietly.

As for what came next… Well, I’ll save that for next time.

P.S. If you haven’t already, you can try out Screenity Pro for yourself here (yes, now with a free trial!): screenity.io/pro ❤️

Until next time,

Alyssa X