Build & Launch

This week Justin teams up with his friend Marty to build and launch a web application called Network Effects.

Were they able to launch in time?

Community update:

• Corey Stone built & launched: herokeyboard.com
• Kyle Adams creates incredible icons + illustrations: kyleadams.me
• Justin Weiss released his book “Practicing Rails”: www.justinweiss.com/practicing-rails/

On burnout

Did they launch?

YES! Network Effects launched to 10 beta testers on Thursday. You can sign-up for the beta here: networkeffects.me

Costs

• 2-3 hours a night (each): 14-21 hours total for the week (each).
• Costs: $100 / month for Heroku, SSL, hosting for the marketing site, private GitHub

The next Build & Launch product

A lot of listeners have said they'd be interested in me partnering with someone else, and helping them launch a product in 7 days.

My buddy Adam Clark needs help - he needs to launch his course, Irresistible Podcasting, in about a week. I asked him if he wanted to do a one week "Build & Launch" sprint with me, live on air. He said yes.

You can take a look at the landing page here: irresistiblepodcasting.com.

Show notes

• Gumroad will collect VAT as required and remit it to the EU.
• Justin on Twitter: @mijustin
• Review the show on iTunes!
• Gumroad's 30 day challenge
• Join the Build & Launch newsletter
• Cover art by Brian Talbot

Podcast hosting provided by Transistor.fm.

Update from 2021: A lot has happened since I recorded these episodes: I launched a podcast hosting company, Transistor.fm, with my friend Jon Buda! If you want to hear what I'm up to now go to transistor.fm/justin. 

I called a competitor on the phone.

Join Justin Jackson as he talks with Kiki Schirr about not getting discouraged when competitors pop up.

This week's Build & Launch project

This is also the mid-week check-up for the second product we're building live on the show: a fully functional web application. In this episode you'll hear from my partner in crime, Marty Dill: will we be able to launch this side-project (working only in our spare time) on Thursday?

You can see the website here: networkeffects.me

Show Notes

• Sign-up for the beta of this week's project: networkeffects.me
• Want to get started? Check out Gumroad's 30 Day Challenge
• Kiki's book: The Product Hunt Manual
• Justin's book: The Product Hunt Handbook
• Join the Build & Launch newsletter to get all the stats
• Want to share your project? Find me on Twitter: @mijustin
• Almost 20,000 listens in February so far! Help out by leaving a review in iTunes.

Podcast hosting provided by Transistor.fm.

Update from 2021: A lot has happened since I recorded these episodes: I launched a podcast hosting company, Transistor.fm, with my friend Jon Buda! If you want to hear what I'm up to now go to transistor.fm/justin. 

When we last spoke, I was mid-week through his experiment of building a product in 7 days. Yesterday was supposed to be launch day, did I succeed? Listen as I expose his personal audio journals to the world, chronicling his journey of writing and shipping "The Product Hunt Handbook." Explore the struggle, the obstacles, the exhaustion!

Initial Launch Stats for the Product Hunt Handbook

• Pre-orders: 58 people pre-ordered ($605)
• Total orders as of Friday morning (Feb 6): 89 total sales ($1,055)
• 40 sales came from Product Hunt, 32 sales came from the Build & Launch newsletter

This week's Build & Launch project

My buddy Marty and I are going to try to build an entire web application by Thursday, Feb 12th, 2015 BEFORE HIS BABY COMES.

Show Notes

• Tech Douchebags podcast
• The Product Hunt Handbook
• Kathleen Warner, a Designer at Gumroad, posted the book to Product Hunt
• Geek Beers in Vernon, BC
• People have been leaving iTunes reviews like crazy!
• Gumroad's 30 Day Challenge
• Build & Launch newsletter (get all my launch stats)
• Follow Justin on Twitter @mijustin
• BEARD UPDATE

Podcast hosting provided by Transistor.fm.

Update from 2021: A lot has happened since I recorded these episodes: I launched a podcast hosting company, Transistor.fm, with my friend Jon Buda! If you want to hear what I'm up to now go to transistor.fm/justin. 

It’s the mid-week checkup! Last Thursday Justin announced the first product he'd be building. He only has 7 days to do it.

In this episode you'll hear real-life journal entries from Justin as he attempts to write The Product Hunt handbook for delivery on Thursday.

He also got a special surprise... listen to hear about that.

Follow-up

• We made it to the top of New & Noteworthy in iTunes! Thank you! (Keep leaving those reviews)
• You can pre-order The Product Hunt Handbook now and get $5 off (somebody already did!)
• Maurice Cherry shared his new podcast, Year of Tea
• Shantnu started /r/bankmanagers on Reddit ;)
• Lucas da Silva from Brazil wanted to hear some heavy metal, so I played City of Gold, by Striker
• Justin Hunter was inspired to start building!

Stats update

• Total podcast listens: 8017
• Most popular episode: "EP6: This is it: first product announcement!"
• iTunes Ratings: 50
• List item

Goal for today

Get the pre-order page up and ready: gum.co/producthunt/preorder

Beard update

Photo from Saturday while I was writing.

Show notes

• Pre-order The Product Hunt Handbook
• Subscribe & Rate the show on iTunes
• Gumroad's 30 Day Challenge
• Build & Launch newsletter
• Follow Justin on Twitter: @mijustin

Podcast hosting provided by Transistor.fm.

Update from 2021: A lot has happened since I recorded these episodes: I launched a podcast hosting company, Transistor.fm, with my friend Jon Buda! If you want to hear what I'm up to now go to transistor.fm/justin. 

Whoo. This is it. This is the day I announce the first product I'll be working on for Build & Launch. I wanted to start really small: I think the mistake most people make when they're building their first thing, is they choose something way too big.

Product announcement

The first official Build & Launch product is... The Product Hunt Handbook.

There’s two important things you need to cover when building anything:

1. Who is this for? What specific type of person am I targeting?
2. What’s their pain? Why would the hire this product? What’s going to convince them to take out their wallets, and buy?

New show format!

Initially, was going to do a 30 min episode a week, but people are loving these smaller 10-15 minute episodes.

Here's what I'm going to try out: I'll do 3 mini-episodes a week:

1. Start project + previous week’s stats
2. Mid-week checkup
3. Launch day!

Stats update

• Podcast listens: 3584 listens so far (up from 814 listens today)
• Most popular episode: How do you say Creeper in French?
• 37 ratings in the US iTunes Store (up from 12 yesterday)
• My favorite review so far
• Mailing list: 421 subscribers so far
• 347 views on buildandlaunch.net (down from Tuesday's high from 1,334 views yesterday)

Beard update

Current photo.

Show Notes

• Pre-order The Product Hunt Handbook
• Rate the show on iTunes!
• Gumroad's 30 Day Challenge
• Build & Launch newsletter
• Follow Justin on Twitter: @mijustin

Podcast hosting provided by Transistor.fm.

Update from 2021: A lot has happened since I recorded these episodes: I launched a podcast hosting company, Transistor.fm, with my friend Jon Buda! If you want to hear what I'm up to now go to transistor.fm/justin. 

Yesterday was launch day for the podcast. It landed on Product Hunt, and there was a flurry of excitement. But what happens the day after you launch? Today I talk about the post-launch blues.

Stats update

• Podcast listens: 2312 listens so far (up from 955 listens yesterday)
• Most popular episode: Podcast Gear Starter Kit
• 29 ratings in the US iTunes Store (up from 12 yesterday)
• My favorite review so far
• 677 views on buildandlaunch.net (up from 671 views yesterday)

Beard update

Current photo.

Launch week: How to make a podcast

• Episode 1: Choosing a topic
• Episode 2: Record your first episode
• Episode 3: Podcasting equipment
• Episode 4: Recording, interviewing, editing (yesterday's episode)
• Episode 5: Launching and promoting (this episode)

How to launch your podcast

1. Have 3 episodes in the bag before you submit to iTunes.
2. Create a podcast-friendly RSS feed with your 3 episodes (I used simplecast.fm for this).
3. Submit it to the iTunes store by going into iTunes, clicking on iTunes Store, selecting Podcast on the right-side, and the clicking on Submit a podcast (screenshot here)
4. Wait for Apple to email you.
5. Once it's live in iTunes, it's time to start hustling. You need to get as much initial traction you get (rating, downloads, subscribes) will determine how you rank in iTunes.
6. Write your network individually, and ask them to rate the show. Here's the email template I used.
7. If you use Overcast to listen to podcasts, you can share the show on Twitter.
8. Find an online community that would be interested in the show. Examples: Product Hunt, Designer News, or a sub-reddit on Reddit.

Show Notes

• Rate the show on iTunes!
• Allan Branch (from Less Accounting) left this tweet
• Gumroad's 30 Day Challenge
• Build & Launch newsletter
• Follow Justin on Twitter: @mijustin

Podcast hosting provided by Transistor.fm.

Update from 2021: A lot has happened since I recorded these episodes: I launched a podcast hosting company, Transistor.fm, with my friend Jon Buda! If you want to hear what I'm up to now go to transistor.fm/justin. 

In this episode we hear what Justin's family thinks about this crazy experiment. Also: why is Justin standing in a completely dark closet?

Launch stats

I promised that I'd share all my launch stats for each project I release.

So far, in the last 24 hours, here are the stats:

• 955 podcast listens
• 671 page views on buildandlaunch.net (almost all from Product Hunt)
• 12 ratings in the USA iTunes Store
• 5 ratings in the Canadian iTunes Store
• 93 upvotes on Product Hunt
• Launch email list: 394 subscribers

Question & Answer

1. What do you use for podcasting stats + hosting? Transistor.fm
2. What do you use to record audio interviews over Skype? You can use Skype Call Recorder or Audio Hijack Pro. I use ScreenFlow, which is screencasting software, but it works really well for recording audio as well.
3. Where do you get your theme music? You can get theme music from Premium Beat and Audio Jungle. I got my music from someone local.

Want to help make Build & Launch a success? Subscribe, and leave a review in iTunes!

Big guide for starting a podcast: transistor.fm/start

Once Build & Launch starts it's official season on February 5th, 2015, Justin Jackson will launch a new product every week. Listen and learn from his wins and misses, and get motivated to ship your own SaaS, mobile app, ebook, or other digital project.

Launch week: How to make a podcast

• Episode 1: Choosing a topic
• Episode 2: Record your first episode
• Episode 3: Podcasting equipment (yesterday's episode)
• Episode 4: Recording, interviewing, editing (this episode)
• Episode 5: Launching and promoting

Show notes

• Striker Metal
• Product People
• Gumroad's 30 Day Challenge
• Justin Jackson's newsletter
• Follow Justin on Twitter: @mijustin
• This week's cover photo by Ryan Trauman

Podcast hosting provided by Transistor.fm.

Update from 2021: A lot has happened since I recorded these episodes: I launched a podcast hosting company, Transistor.fm, with my friend Jon Buda! If you want to hear what I'm up to now go to transistor.fm/justin. 

Want to start your own podcast this year? For Build & Launch's inaugural week, Justin Jackson is doing 5 mini episodes on what it takes to build and launch a podcast. Today's episode: what kind of of podcasting gear you should get.

Want to help make Build & Launch a success? Subscribe, and leave a review in iTunes!

Once Build & Launch starts it's official season on February 5th, 2015, Justin Jackson will launch a new product every week. Listen and learn from his wins and misses, and get motivated to ship your own SaaS, mobile app, ebook, or other digital project.

Justin's podcasting startup kit

1. Microphone: Audio-Technica ATR2100-USB
2. Headphones: Sennheiser HD 202 II
3. Editing software: Garage Band (for Mac) and Audacity (for PC)

Launch week: How to make a podcast

• Episode 1: Choosing a topic
• Episode 2: Record your first episode (yesterday's episode)
• Episode 3: Podcasting equipment (this episode)
• Episode 4: Recording, interviewing, editing
• Episode 5: Launching and promoting

Show notes

• Merlin Mann on Back to Work, Episode 199
• Adam Clark's podcasting course
• Gumroad's 30 Day Challenge
• Justin Jackson's newsletter
• Follow Justin on Twitter: @mijustin
• This week's cover photo by Ryan Trauman

Podcast hosting provided by Transistor.fm.

Update from 2021: A lot has happened since I recorded these episodes: I launched a podcast hosting company, Transistor.fm, with my friend Jon Buda! If you want to hear what I'm up to now go to transistor.fm/justin. 

Want to Build & Launch your own thing? Join Justin Jackson as he launches a new product every week. Listen and learn from his wins and misses, and get motivated to ship your own SaaS, mobile app, ebook, or other digital project.

Want to help make Build & Launch a success? Subscribe, and leave a review in iTunes!

For the podcast's launch week, he's doing 5 mini episodes on what it takes to build and launch a podcast. Today's episode: start now and start small.

How to record your first podcast

1. Find the Voice Memos app on your iPhone
2. Choose a topic you'd like to talk about (see yesterday's episode)
3. Write out an outline for a short 5-10 minute episode
4. Open up the Voice Memos app and record your episode!
5. Repeat over and over again: practice recording that same episode dozens of times
6. Send Justin your mini-episode: [email protected]

Launch week: How to make a podcast

Episode 1: Choosing a topic (yesterday's episode) Episode 2: Record your first episode (this episode) Episode 3: Podcasting equipment Episode 4: Recording, interviewing, editing Episode 5: Launching and promoting

How to start a podcast

Show notes

• Voice memos on the iPhone
• Nate Kontny
• Gumroad's 30 Day Challenge
• Justin Jackson's newsletter
• Follow Justin on Twitter: @mijustin
• This week's cover photo by drestwn

Podcast hosting provided by Transistor.fm.

Update from 2021: A lot has happened since I recorded these episodes: I launched a podcast hosting company, Transistor.fm, with my friend Jon Buda! If you want to hear what I'm up to now go to transistor.fm/justin. 

Build & Launch is an experimental podcast about launching products. Every week, Justin Jackson takes you on a journey of shipping something new. You'll get to here about his missteps and wins as he creates something and then launches it to the public. Then you'll be able to check back the following week and hear about his launch stats: revenue, traffic, conversion rates, everything!

Want to help make Build & Launch a success? Subscribe, and leave a review in iTunes!

For the podcast's launch week, he's doing 5 mini episodes on what it takes to build and launch a podcast. Today's episode is about choosing a topic.

Launch week: How to make a podcast

Episode 1: Choosing a topic (today's episode) Episode 2: Record your first episode Episode 3: Podcasting equipment Episode 4: Recording, interviewing, editing Episode 5: Launching and promoting

Show notes

• Product People podcast
• Kyle Fox
• Merlin Mann: "People come for the topic, and stay for the voice"
• Venn Diagram: choose your audience wisely
• /r/bankmanagers on Reddit
• Gumroad's 30 Day Challenge
• Justin Jackson's newsletter
• Follow Justin on Twitter: @mijustin
• This week's cover photo by David van der Mark

Podcast hosting provided by Transistor.fm.

Update from 2021: A lot has happened since I recorded these episodes: I launched a podcast hosting company, Transistor.fm, with my friend Jon Buda! If you want to hear what I'm up to now go to transistor.fm/justin.