#2 on Product Hunt with no marketing or launch plan

Hey Indie Hackers 👋

I recently launched the Notion investment dashboard on Product Hunt. The community support was amazing and I managed to hit #2.

Contrary to the endless articles on how you need to work yourself into the ground to succeed on Product Hunt I went into this with no launch or marketing plan.

A small feat but here are 5 learnings I took from the experience👇🏾

1. Be intentional about the day you list 📆

My product was a Notion investment dashboard. I'll be the first to say some other products on PH are in a totally different league. I mean Notion itself occasionally launches product updates on there!

Due to this, I launched on a day that traditionally has less competition. This definitely allowed my listing to not get swamped by larger competition and allowed some strong traction in the early hours of the launch.

Takeaway: understand the PH marketplace and be honest about the day you should launch.

2. Don’t ask for upvotes 📉

I've been guilty of this in previous launches.

The algorithm knows. The community can tell. It feels spammy. No one likes receiving a cold DM asking you to upvote.

That said, I love it when makers send me their listings cause I get to see a new amazing product! So share for the sake of sharing. Not for the vote. There are great threads on Twitter with templates on how to approach this.

Apart from posting on my small and humble Twitter account I did not DM anyone or ask for upvotes. I’m not saying you shouldn’t - just do it in the right way.

Takeaway: Don’t be spammy.

3. The creative is fundamental to your success 📝

Your creative assets are game-changers. You need informative, clear, catchy assets.

Most listings on PH are aware of this so there is no excuse for poor creative assets. Your listing will likely fail if you fail to deliver on this.

Be honest in your abilities. If graphics are not your domain then find help. Plenty out there!

Takeaway: Have nice creative assets. Get help.

4. Be active in the community 🗣

Be active in the community local to your product. For me this is the Notion community (such an amazing group of humans!). I try to be active on Twitter, Reddit and here on IH’s!

Be active in the Product Hunt community. The native discussion threads on PH are often filled with great posts. Share your two cents. Do this over time with no expectations other than to be a friendly face in the community.

Be active in all the comments posted on your listing throughout the day. Reply to comments!! Yes, some comments are just users commenting to get traction on their own profile. But majority of comments are people who are genuinely interested in your product and are leaving feedback, feature requests or general questions.

Get in there and engage! Here’s a thread outlining some updates I made to my listing off the back of some feedback from comments on my PH listing.

Takeaway: Always be engaging.

5. Don’t be intimidated to launch on Product Hunt 🚀

Product Hunt probably isn’t the place for your MVP. You do only get one chance (generally) to launch so you want it to at least be a polished version of your product.

That said, don't push back until your product is 'perfect'. There will forever be another feature to add. Just ship it. Future feature iterations will be a nice bonus for your customers and it shows you are an active builder.

Don't be turned off by these large 'launch checklists'. Yes, they are important and will definitely improve your chances of success. But don’t push your launch back months and months because someone on the internet said you need a launch plan with 100+ items.

Takeaway: Do your prep and ship it!

In summary 📦  + the numbers 💶👀

Writing this out it does seem like I did have somewhat of a plan 😂  but i’d argue all of this only became clear in hindsight. In summary, don’t take yourself too seriously. Launching on Product Hunt is a big deal - but it’s also not. Have fun with it, use it as a chance to engage with users and always try to find a learning from experience!

The numbers:

Page views - 2732
Sales - 97 (a bunch of these were my other templates which are free)
Revenue - $338

Find the Gumroad listing here - Notion investment dashboard.

Product Hunt listing here - Notion investment dashboard.

Say hi!

Drop a comment below with any questions/thoughts/feedback or send me a message on twitter.

— Hugh ✌🏽