Have you ever spent a year working tirelessly on a web app, where the finish line is a make-or-break launch with tens of thousands of users waiting for the moment it goes live? Have you ever done it every year for seven straight years? How about for the same app?

Last week marked our 7th year launching Fantasy BB alongside my husband John Bonaccorsi, a web app that is essentially Fantasy Football but for reality TV (currently, Big Brother). Most apps don’t have “off seasons,” but because ours is only relevant for the 1/3rd of the year while Big Brother is airing, we get to relive the highs and lows of a high-intensity launch every summer.

This year, we kept busy during our 8-month off-season. In addition to a slew of new features our users had been requesting for years, we refactored our entire codebase (Laravel, Laravel Livewire, AlpineJS, and TailwindCSS) to prepare for some bigger changes in the years ahead. Our efforts were successful, at this moment we are only a few hundred signups away from hitting the 50,000 user milestone. Remarkably, we achieved this without any paid advertisements, solely through word of mouth.

That being said, no launch is without its challenges. Below are a few we faced and had to quickly address:

• Our image optimization service randomly changes pricing rules on us, forcing us to quickly vet and migrate to a new one (so far we’ve been very happy with Bunny).
• Our 8-month off-season meant our email provider hadn’t been warmed up in a while, resulting in delayed email sends. We are currently looking into new providers.
• Last-minute verifications with social login providers who have implemented more stringent requirements in the face of GDPR.

Launching an application like Fantasy BB every year is a reminder of the importance of testing (both automated and manual), having a plan, and being prepared to pivot on a moment's notice to address the highest priority. Because of these things, despite challenges, we’ve never had an unsuccessful launch.

If you're a fan of the show, you can create or join a FREE fantasy league at https://fantasybb.com.