An indie hacker launches on Product Hunt: what worked and what didn't
Yesterday I launched Mugshot Bot on Product Hunt as a solo founder. It was a wild ride and I’ve never been glued to my computer like this.
The launch finished with with over 250 upvotes, 39 comments, and #5 Product of the Day. It generated close to 1000 visits, over 70 sign ups, and 6 paying customers.
Here’s the highlights of my journey: what worked, what didn’t work, and things I wish I spent more time on. I take a deeper dive in my blog post with specific examples.
Oh, and for newcomers, Mugshot Bot is a tool that automates link preview images for your website without design tools.
What worked
- Build in public before the launch - post updates on Twitter, Indie Hackers, everywhere. Try and get as many people as possible as involved.
- Get someone to share your post early in the morning. You only have 24 hours on Product Hunt, make every one count.
- Live tweet your launch and respond to everything. This stirs up excitement and gets more people involved.
- Be genuine and ask for support, not upvotes.
What didn’t work
- Don't engage an out-of-target audiences - pick one and focus all of your effort there.
- Don't scramble to throw together an email campaign at the last minute - write it the night or week before and schedule it.
- Don't promote your Product Hunt launch tweet on Twitter ads. At least for me, the ROI was awful.
- Don't obsessively refresh metrics. Focus on responding to comments and support.
What I wish I'd also done
- Post to Indie Hackers. I mean, duh! It totally slipped my mind.
- Fine-tune a welcome e-mail asking folks to share the Product Hunt post.
- Made a checklist of all the things to do before launch day.
Your Product Hunt launch
I've expanded on all of these topics on my blog. Check it out for more details and insights on specifics.
https://masilotti.com/product-hunt-what-worked/
If you used this post to help your launch I’d love to hear about it. Reply below or send me an email and we can talk shop.
