In my normal work as bi analist I have the experience of maintaining some databases with a userbase of 10 000 people. Disruptions are deadly for users’ confidence. With large user populations with a shocked trust you constantly receive questions and comments that can take up a large part of your daily working time if things go wrong. Of course I prefer not to have that at all in my private time. I do Android in my private time…and other things….
At work to reach a large group of users and know the wishes of the business is at least physically easy. It is clear who is approachable, you know where the management is and where your users are. With google play, that is of course impossible for a beginner to know. You know nothing at all outside your own circle.
Translated to the Android platform, I am assuming that a negative experience is far more important. After all, a user does not have to use your app, so negative experiences count more than positive ones. For the time being I opt for a staged rollout in the countries with a Dutch-speaking community plus Denmark because some old friends live there. In order to have room for handling issues and to see if there is any interest at all, I posted on Facebook and Linkedin that my app has been launched in recent days. At work, I also made this known to the group of close colleagues in a relatively small circle for now.