The process of launching your dApp is just as important as the development stage. There are many aspects to launching a dApp, including testing, ensuring you have the right infrastructure, and building a community around it. If you can nail all of these components down, then you will attract many users.

How to Prepare Before Launching a Dapp

Before you launch your app, you want to make sure that your infrastructure can handle the amount of users that will start using your app. This can make or break your launch - it is always better to be on the safe side with ensuring your dApp is scalable. It is important to make sure you are using a solid node deployment platform to ensure this stability. Alchemy is a leading node deployment platform - other alternatives include QuickNode, Chainstack, or Infura.

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If you do use Alchemy to deploy your dApp, then you can take advantage of several initiatives that will ensure your scalability and also help make your dApp more visible.

1. Testnets

Before you launch your app, you should deploy it on a testnet first to make sure it is working as expected. Sepolia is the biggest Ethereum testnet for dApp developers, while Mumbai is the testnet for developing on Polygon. Alchemy offers testnet nodes to test your app in minutes.

To quickly test out Ethereum JSON RPC queries without having to sign up with any provider, you can also use the Ethereum composer.

2. Alchemy Faucets

When testing your dApp on Sepolia, you will need Sepolia ETH in order to fund transactions within your dApp. You should use a faucet to get free Sepolia ETH to test your app.

3. Badge Program

Alchemy’s Badge program can also easily give your app more throughput and scalability. If you put Alchemy’s badge on your website, you can earn thousands of dollars in Alchemy compute units and throughput. This also allows you to establish your reputation by associating your dApp with a larger brand.

4. Amplify

Finally, if you are a bit more established with an online presence, then the Amplify program will help you accelerate your growth 10x. dApps that are accepted into Amplify are promoted across Alchemy’s socials and newsletter, and get 24/7 mentorship from the Alchemy team. You can apply for Amplify at any time, and once your dApp launches on the store it will be promoted.

Avoid Rate Limits

Still worried about your dApp’s ability to handle a large number of requests? Alchemy’s Growth tier will give you more resources and allow you to auto-scale without a cap. If you have any questions or concerns about your launch, contact us at [email protected].

5. Run Smart Contract Tests

In Web3, the importance of testing is ten times greater than it is in web2. It is extremely important to test any smart contracts you use in your dApps before launching through unit testing and manual test cases. There are many smart contract testing tools you can use to do this.

If you also need monitoring tools for Ethereum in general, then you can use our custom webhooks to get this information within seconds.

6. Complete Smart Contract Audits

You should also consider auditing your smart contracts for security flaws, especially as smart contracts are immutable. These audits will ensure your smart contracts are both bug-free and well-designed to make sure they are as secure as possible. The dApp store has smart contract auditing tools to help you do this.

Launching and Distribution

Once you have finished and deployed your dApp, you now need to get it in the hands of customers. Although often overlooked, the distribution of your dApp is just as important as the development - after all, if nobody uses your dApp, then the development was for naught. 

1. Launch on the Alchemy Dapp Store

Now, time to launch! Firstly, you should decide on a time for your dApp to go live that you will advertise on your socials. There isn’t a perfect time to launch, and you should only do so when you’re ready. Launching during the beginning of the week tends to get a bit more traction as employees are more engaged, although you should always make sure your product is ready beforehand.

Furthermore, you should have a landing page ready on your website that presents a clear call to action for users that visit. You don’t want new visitors to be bogged down in information - they need to see the important information about your dApp distilled into a few key points that are just enough to make them want to try it.

After announcing your launch and building your landing page, you should register your app on dApp stores to get as much visibility as possible. The largest dApp store is the Alchemy Dapp store. Posting your dApp there is a great way to give your app reach, and allows you to continue establishing an online presence for free.

To upload your dApp to the Alchemy Dapp Store, you should first make sure it follows the Dapp store guidelines. In general, if your dApp is professional and has some level of usage then it will typically be accepted. 

You can then submit your dApp on the store through this form. Keep in mind that new Alchemy dApps are published to the store twice-monthly. Feel free to email us at [email protected] if you have any additional questions about the submission process.

2. Market your dApp on Social Media

The best way to distribute your dApp is to use social media and build a community around your product. dApp users tend to be most active on Twitter, Discord, and Telegram, and so having active accounts on these platforms is a must. If you can build active communities on these platforms, then you will have a better chance at a successful launch, and you will also signal to customers that you have a trustworthy brand.

A good way of establishing a community for your dApp is by already being active in other related web3 communities. Once you have contributed in adjacent communities and built a personal network, you can then leverage this to market your dApp. Remember: web3 is all about community, and you will get back what you put into the space. Building a strong reputation and adding value to web3 communities will allow you to market your dApp better when the time is right.

One example of a dApp that built a strong community before launching is Axie Infinity. It launched in early 2018  and advertised itself as a way of earning money in a fun way. By branding itself in this way and building a community of people who liked the idea of playing to earn - and knowing their target customer - they quickly grew into one of the biggest games on Ethereum. The founders were also already active with Cryptokitties, and thus understood the web3 gaming space and had more leverage in building their community as a result.

Some other good ways of building your dApp community is by going to web3 hackathons and conferences, and frequenting places or forums where your target audience lies. When Uniswap just started, the founder did a great job of integrating tightly with the Ethereum community and building on top of Vitalik’s previous ideas. Uniswap eventually received a $100,000 grant from Ethereum foundation, spearheading their growth over the following years.

Finally, try to attach your name to larger brands in adjacent spaces for more visibility. For instance, getting into Alchemy’s Amplify program will attach your dApp name to Alchemy. Always try to look for ways you can add value for larger brands in return for more visibility for your dApp.

Keep in mind that the marketing and community-building for your app should start long before you launch.

How to Scale a Dapp After Launch

When launching a dApp, it is difficult to monitor and/or predict the usage it will have in order to know exactly how many developer resources you need. Thus, it’s important to make sure you have as many compute units as possible beforehand to ensure a smooth launch for your users.

1. $25 Million WAGBI Developer Grant

Alchemy recently launched a $25M grant program called WAGBI to encourage new developers to build in web3. If you are accepted into WAGBI, you’re eligible to earn up to $50,000 in Alchemy compute units in addition to the visibility this will give your dApp. This is an easy way of scaling your dApp further from nothing (and for free!).

You can apply for this at any time, even after you have launched your dApp.

2. Confirm Autoscale is Enabled

If deploying on Alchemy, the plan you choose will determine how many users you can support on your dApp. Thus, if you anticipate a lot of usage beforehand, then you should sign up for Alchemy’s growth plan. This will allow you to autoscale your usage to ensure your dApp launches smoothly. If you are concerned about your dApps’ launch, then you should also speak to sales about our enterprise plan.

Write 2-3 sentences about how the user’s plan will determine how much volume they can support. So encourage them to sign up to growth, talk to sales about autoscale / enterprise.

3. Technical Support

You should also be prepared to handle technical difficulties as they arise during your dApp launch. If you have issues with deploying your app, then reach out to our support via our Discord. If you have mission-critical issues and are on a Growth plan or above, then reach out to us to get access to a 24 hour private Telegram or Slack channel for dedicated support. 

Finally, we have a chatbot called ChatWeb3 to answer any questions you may have during the process of web3 development.

4. Monitoring Infrastructure

After launching your dApp and posting it on various dApp stores, you should closely monitor the usage of your dApp to make sure that you are able to handle the number of users. You may need to get more compute units through your infrastructure provider to handle the traffic to your dApp.

Be very careful about this - inadequate infrastructure can kill a launch quicker than it started.

Alchemy Monitor and Alchemy Build are tools that will also help you monitor your launch and fix bugs quickly.

5. Launch Retrospective

If you felt as though your launch was successful, then congratulations! On the flipside, if you don’t have as many users as you were expecting, then that’s OK. In either case, you should think about the following questions to evaluate whether your dApp can succeed long-term:

• How are customers responding to your dApp? Does it fill a truly important need for them?
• Who are the customers using your dApp the most? 
• Do you see your customer-base expanding, or does it only fill a need for a niche set of customers?
• What are the challenges you may face when scaling your dApp up?
• If you were planning on monetizing your dApp, then do you have a clear path to doing this?

You will get the answers to these questions by speaking with customers and being tightly integrated with your community. Once again, the success of your dApp will depend on how good you are at building your community. 

If you reached the end of this guide, then you now have everything you need to successfully launch your dApp. Good luck, and we can’t wait to see the dApp you create!

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