Trends.vc
Discover new markets and ideas
You can check it out.
A lot of credit goes to IH. Sharing some tips:
Tactics:
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Launch on Tuesday. Historically, Tuesday has the most votes. Even if you don't get #1 of the day. More people will see your product. If you want to get product of the day and don't care about overall traffic. Launch on Sunday.
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Share the launch on Twitter, Indie Hackers, Slack, LinkedIn and your email list.
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Don't ask for votes. Ask for comments and reviews. The former gets you disqualified.
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Respond to comments. This factors into the algorithm.
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Get someone with a large following to hunt you. Their followers get an alert when they hunt a new product. (EDIT: Debate in comments but verified, by @hieunc, that this works)
Strategy:
- Deliver value before you launch. Going into the launch with brand affinity helps.
That's it. The previous milestone mentions PreviewHunt and how to land on the first page.
It took a while but Trends.vc is finally on Product Hunt!
Here are some tips I got:
- Use Preview Hunt to mockup your images and copy. Expect for dimensions to be off a little.
- Try to get at least 20 upvotes in the first hour (this usually means you're on the front page)
- Reply to every comment you receive
If you're willing to support, please leave a comment or review 🙏
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Congrats Drew. How do you get 20 upvotes in first hour?
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Thank you. On the votes:
Twitter, an email list, Indie Hackers, LinkedIn, slack groups.
There are a lot of ways.
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Congrats. Have u managed to be hunted or did it by yourself?
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Looks like Hiten Shah hunted so that is pretty amazing!!
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You got my vote as well. Much success to you!🤓👍
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Thank you!
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Great job! Congratulations ⚡️
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Thank you so much
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Nice work! I upvoted, and appreciate you sharing the lessons - I plan to launch my newsletter Lean Code Weekly on PH soon and these tips will be very helpful!
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Thanks. Feel free to ping me when you launch. DMs are open on Twitter
And @hippohacker asked a good question on getting upvotes. Some ideas:
How do you get 20 upvotes in first hour?
Twitter, an email list, Indie Hackers, LinkedIn, slack groups.
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Woohoo!
Congratulations @dru_riley! 🙌-
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Thanks Anita!
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You got my upvote! I'm sorry, I didn't do it earlier. I just saw the post on IndieHackers.
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Congrats on the launch. I literally just learned about your product today and signed up 1 time after reading a few reviews on PH.
Reading through the insights, and even though it's "common sense" you're selling it's great to see someone put into a bite-sized format that's easy to understand.
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Congrats Dru. Glad to see the journey of Trends from zero to one ! Super excited how to take it from 1 to N!
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My ZT1 fam. Thanks for everything Sharath!
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This is an amazing milestone and an awesome product. If you are stuck or moving fast, this will get you going in the right direction. Give yourself the optionality that comes with better thinking on new markets and ideas. Congrats Dru.
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The man that told me to do it. Thanks Edmund!
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Awesome job!
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Thanks Elliot!
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Congrats, going great!
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Thank you Martin!!
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Congrats @dru_riley!
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Thanks Leo!
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Great to see this @dru_riley. Big Congratulations and great to see Trends perched on top today when I opened up Product Hunt!
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Congrats Dru! Yours is a true Indie Hackers success story!
Glad more people are going to be able to see the amazing work you've done here with Trends.vc 🙌
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Thank you Ash! 🙏
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Less than 3 months ago, I wrote a post on how I failed to monetize Trends.vc.
The post ends with earning $162 after the failed launch.
Some milestones:
- Made first sale
- Reached $1k
- Reached $3k
- Crossed 100 Paid Subscribers
- And yesterday, reached $10k (now $11k)
There's a short essay coming about the lessons learned so far. But a sneak peek:
- Start what you won't quit: I quit a lot of things before Trends. I wasn't thinking about this as an infinite game. It's important to enjoy the work. It'll get hard even if you enjoy it.
- Community Matters: As a solo founder, it's easy to get stuck in your head and develop blindspots. Friends can act as honorary co-founders.
- They're Just Like You: I recently met a lot of people that I've looked up to for years. It's easy to feel like you don't belong. But when you get close... You realize that they're just like you. They've just been compounding longer. It's cliché but Steve said it best: "Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it, you can influence it… Once you learn that, you'll never be the same again."
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I needed to read this line today, " It'll get hard even if you enjoy it." Congrats on sticking with the infinite game.
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This is awesome, congratulations! Look forward to reading the essay.
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Watching your journey up close has been super inspiring! You've always had potential and this external validation was inevitable. Taking notes and learning from you, Dru!
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Congrats man! Great content! Keep it up!
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Congrats Dru ✨
Your work is very valuable to me, even on the free tier. Thanks
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Congrats!!! This is so true —> “ They've just been compounding longer”. I don’t see this talked about enough.
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I checked the site and its one of the best on earth it given me insights how to reshape my new platform and yeah i will do lots of IH updates so all of you can learn from it. Well done @dru_riley keep up awesome work and ready to read your essay
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So happy to finally see you making some cash off Trends!
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Congratulations
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keep going yo. love the content.
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Congratulations Dru! Great milestone and many more will follow!
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Congrats bro! 🎉🚀 keep it up!
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Congratulations Dru! Love your concept: In my case I have a wife and friend as honorary cofounders 🤗.
You remind me of “The Dip” from Seth Godin, it’s hard to know when to stick and when to quit, but we all do this for the hustle/struggle.
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Congrats Dru! So inspiring
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Very cool! Your newsletters are gold! 🔥
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Holy crap, so happy to see you take off!
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Love your newsletter man! Awesome tips. Starting what you love so you won't quit is sooooo important!
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“Friend act as honorary cofounders” ❤️
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Congrats Dru!
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Wow! Congratulations Dru!! :) Super exciting milestone :)
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Congratulations can't wait for the full essay.
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Congrats!
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Happy for you! 🎉
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Loved your persistency!
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Absolutely identify with and love the Steve quote. It's what drives me to this day that even ordinary folks like myself can make an impact. Even if its just one person.
But the funny thing about that is, I've learned how to help one person really well, matters before you help 100. And I am still learning that!
I am inspired to see your progress and very happy to see this rocket ship take off.
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Amazing!
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So cool to see Trends growing, Dru. Very great ✌️🍵
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Amazing milestone - glad I was able to follow your journey from the beginning 🙂
19 Comments
Love it. I’m planning to launch 🚀 https://storycreatorapp.com this week. Let’s gooo
🔥Looks dope Michael. Feel free to DM when you launch. I'm good for a comment
@DruRly on Twitter
Sweet. I am nervous I am not properly prepared.
I would like to use this launch as a way to bring some cash in the door. I have been thinking about what headlime.io did, which is running a lifetime offer to bring some seed cash.
I don't want this to be a thing that prevents me from launching, but doing a deal where the first 100 lifetime accounts are sold at $197 would mean $19k of seed money so that I can pay rent in 2 months and start testing ads.
So I am thinking about baking that into the product today/tomorrow then launching on Thursday.
I'd love thoughts if you have any and if you're pressed for time I have a quick demo https://storycreatorapp.com/demo I'd like to gather your thoughts on if you think I am missing anything for launch.
Cheers
This is cool!
I planned to launch with a deal and suspect that revenue could have been a lot higher with it. It doesn't have to be a lifetime deal. Maybe something like use the code 'producthunt' for XX% off for the next 24 hours. Could drive urgency.
BTW. The ability to try the product without friction is great.
🥳 Congrats! This is such valuable info, thanks for sharing!
Thanks Stephen!
To @blaubaer points, seems to be a lot hearsay around the algorithm.
Trying to share what I think helped 🙂
Congrats @dru_riley 🎉 Great to see loads of people love Trends.vc too!
Thanks for the golden nuggets ✨
Thanks! Hope it helps
Congratulations @dru_riley
Planning to goto ProductHunt next week and this helps. Thankyou!!
Happy to help!
This is awesome. Congrats @dru_riley!
Apparently, there is a notification when someone hunts a product.
Thanks @hieunc! 🙏
Insight from our PH campaign last week
There are some additional things you are not getting told about the algorithm, but which are crucial to know.
We did all of the above, had a very well known hunter hunt us and the day started looking good. Temporarily we were on fifth place, with many votes coming in (we shared among our whole network). In terms of votes and comments we were pretty much among the top 3 or 4 for large parts of the day. Still, our ranking started to decline. There were times where we had 200 votes and ranks before us had 30 or 40 votes. So what is happening?
Apparently, people who are just signing up to PH (as large parts of our network did) are not having the same influence as already active members of the PH community. Makes sense, if I'd have to design their algorithm I'd do the same. But this is an important thing to know, because you should ask your network maybe a week or two in advance to join PH and become active - and then vote for you from the leaderboard.
TAKEAWAY: Additionally to all of the above, tell your network a week or two in advance to sign up for PH and be active on the site. Then when the day comes, they should vote for you and comment.
Thanks @dru_riley, will be trying this approach for https://launch.ariv.ai today on Product Hunt.
congrats @dru_riley
Thanks Travis 👊
The trick with hunter doesn't work anymore, does it? Hunter followers don't get notification?
Thanks Victor. Updated. Lmk if you have a link/tweet of the update.
I think it does in terms of where you start out on the leaderboard at the beginning of the day.
This comment was deleted 4 years ago