I'm in a similar phase and this question resonates.
One thing I’m slowly realizing: after launch, distribution becomes a separate craft from building. The product can be good, but if no natural channel exists where your users already hang out, growth feels silent.
Curious if others found that identifying a repeatable distribution channel mattered more than polishing the product at this stage.
So far I have used Resend, Sendgrid, Loops (for a person throw away project so don't have good exposure) but I found Resend the most easiest, convenient and straightforward. Especially their React Email library made it so easier to compose emails using React components. I really love that. Back then we had to manually craft HTML emails, worry about inline styles, and constantly test across different clients, which was a pretty painful process compared to how smooth it is now with React Emails.
One key part of my workflow is validating emails before sending so I'm not blowing up my bills or getting labelled as spam. And since Resend doesn’t support that natively, I'm currently having to use Emailable’s API to check if addresses are actually deliverable. Having that built-in would be a huge plus. And I know it's not usually something that email providers should care about but it would be so much better if Cloudflare makes this a native offering.
Great insights so far. I'd also love to dig deeper into the early days: What did your first 3-6 months look like? Especially curious about strategies beyond referrals - how did you directly find and land your first clients before having a strong portfolio?
Hey, appreciate the detailed feedback! But honestly, this was just a silly little page I put together in a few hours for fun. Wasn't trying to solve any problems - just wanted to make some people laugh with dumb jokes and memes on Valentine's Day And you're right - I was trying so hard to be universally relatable but it might have become generic.
Cool ideas about what it could be! But you know how sometimes you just want to make something goofy without a deeper meaning? That's all this was.
And yeah fair point about the location stuff - definitely could've handled that better with Cloudflare!
Now this is getting slightly frustrating.. I have been tried to explain my original intention in the other replies, so I don't know why people are still bringing this up. Please refer: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43049817#43050394
Ahh, right! I could've used IP geolocation to get all the info I needed, without that intrusive location request. It would've been a much better experience and a lot simpler to implement for me as well. Thanks for pointing this out - definitely a learning moment for me! :-)
Thanks for the feedback. I can totally relate to this frustration, even I personally would be frustrated if a site is asking for location for no fugin reasons.. But as you can see in the above reply, I have tried to explain my original intention. Sorry if this was frustrating..
Yep, thanks for noticing this.. That was my original intention.. I know why people are frustrated but my intention was something else. I was trying to localize the content.
Hey there! Totally get why asking for location might seem odd. But my original intention was actually fun - I wanted to show region-specific content like:
"while couples in Bangalore are stuck in traffic trying to reach their dinner reservations, you're chilling at home saving ₹4,000 on surge pricing".
I had this whole regional data system idea with:
- Local currency symbols (₹, $, £) and their positions (prefix/suffix)
- Region-specific alternative activities (like "Chai pe charcha with yourself" for India or "Pub quiz champion" for UK or something)
- Cultural references that hit different in each place ("Netflix & biryani" vs "Netflix & tea")
- Even Valentine's costs broken down by region!
One thing I’m slowly realizing: after launch, distribution becomes a separate craft from building. The product can be good, but if no natural channel exists where your users already hang out, growth feels silent.
Curious if others found that identifying a repeatable distribution channel mattered more than polishing the product at this stage.