Part 9: Launch & Post-Deployment Monitoring

When I launch personal projects, my usual approach is to walk away. If someone finds it and uses it, great. If not, no harm done. With shotsrv, my URL screenshot tool, I only learned about problems when frustrated users went out of their way to email me - which meant dozens had likely encountered the same issue before one bothered to report it.

This "fire and forget" mentality might work for hobby projects, but for FamFlix - our Netflix-like platform for family videos - it would be disastrous. When real users depend on your application, you need to know immediately when something breaks, not days later when complaints start rolling in.

In this final installment of our series, we'll explore how to launch FamFlix with confidence and implement monitoring that keeps it running smoothly for families.

The Solo Project Mindset: Launch as an Ending

For personal projects:

• Monitoring is optional: If the app crashes, you might not know until weeks later
• Feedback is accidental: Only the most frustrated users will contact you
• Improvements are random: You fix what you notice, not what matters most

This leads to:

• Undetected outages that frustrate users
• No visibility into performance bottlenecks
• No data to guide improvements

With shotsrv, I had no idea the service was struggling under load until users started complaining about timeouts - valuable data I could have acted on sooner.

The Professional Approach: Launch as a Beginning

For FamFlix, launch isn't the end - it's when the real work begins. We need:

1. Phased Rollout

   • Start with a beta group (e.g., 10 families)
   • Gradually increase traffic while monitoring performance
   • Success Metric: 99.9% uptime during initial rollout

2. Comprehensive Monitoring

   • Application: Track errors, API response times, and queue backlogs
   • Infrastructure: Monitor server health, database performance, and storage
   • User Experience: Measure page load times and playback success rates
   • Tools: CloudWatch for metrics, Sentry for errors, and Prometheus for custom alerts

3. Feedback Channels

   • In-app feedback forms (simple "How was your experience?" prompts)
   • Dedicated support email with SLA for responses
   • User analytics to identify pain points in flows

4. Incident Response

   • Playbooks for common failure scenarios
   • On-call rotation for critical alerts
   • Post-mortem culture to prevent repeat issues

Why This Matters

Proper post-launch monitoring lets us:

• Catch issues before users do through proactive alerts
• Make data-driven decisions about improvements
• Build trust with responsive support

For FamFlix, this means families can rely on the platform to preserve their precious memories without frustration or data loss.

Looking Back - And Ahead

Over this series, we've transformed FamFlix from a solo developer's idea into a production-ready platform built with team best practices:

1. Aligning stakeholders on vision and requirements
2. Designing a scalable architecture
3. Selecting battle-tested technologies
4. Building and testing iteratively
5. Deploying with reliability in mind

The final piece? Ensuring it stays excellent after launch through vigilant monitoring and continuous improvement.

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Your Turn
Have you ever been burned by poor post-launch monitoring? Share your war stories in the comments!

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