Launch Your App to Real People
An app nobody uses is a hobby. That is fine, but you set out to build something for people, so this stage puts it in front of some.
Put it online
How you publish depends on what you built. Plain files go to a static host, exactly like the website project. An app with a hosted database needs a host that can also run your server code, if it has any, with the secret keys stored in the host's settings and never in the code. Deploying walks through that step, and Hosting and Domains explains the words.
After it is live, run your tests.txt again on the live address. Things that worked on your machine can fail online, usually because a setting or a key did not come along.
Your first users
You are the first user, and that is a real launch. Use it every day for two weeks. Then give the link to one friend who has a habit they are trying to keep, and ask what confused them.
Your household is the launch. Put the next shopping trip on it. Watch who uses it without being asked and who goes back to texting the list. The person who goes back to texting has the most useful feedback.
Launch with one business owner, ideally someone you know, and a handful of their regular customers. Tell the customers it is new and give them a phone number as a fallback. A missed booking costs the owner real money, so keep the old way running until the new one has earned trust.
Send it to five people and ask them to take it without any explanation from you. Where they hesitate is where the quiz is unclear. If a question gets missed by almost everyone, the question may be the problem.
Know when it breaks
You will not be watching when it fails. Set up the simple alerts from Know When It Breaks so you hear about a failure before your users tell you, and give people one easy way to reach you.
Decide what is next
After a week or two, write down the three things people struggled with most. Fix the first one. Then look again. That loop of shipping, watching, fixing and shipping again is what the whole course has been building toward.
You built an app. Planned it, built it a screen at a time, gave it a safe place to keep data, tried hard to break it and put it in front of people. Every bigger project is the same steps with more of each.
Video deep dives for this stage
Official showcase
Community picks
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