Had a successful 'failed' launch on Product Hunt | 6 Tips to improve your launch ✅

We did our first release on Product Hunt and although everything went wrong, it ended up working out. 🙃 Based on this, I have separated some tips that I hope will help you too.

A few weeks ago I launched Product Gears (https://productgears.com), which serves as a platform for collecting and managing feedback. One of the first things we cared about was how best to reach our audience.

For us, it was clear that we solved a pain for newly created product founders and product managers. What better place to find these two types of users than Product Hunt.

We were first-timers on Product Hunt, although we had used the site since 2014 yet we had never submitted a product.

Preparing for the launch 🚀

We didn't want to launch Product Gears right away, we were afraid that we would fail at a great opportunity. But we had very good content that solved the founder's pain which was 150+ Websites to promote your Startup or Side Project.

That's when we started preparing the launch and studying several posts. I leave mainly these three as an indication:

Tip #1 - There are some types of products that are not featured in Product Hunt

During our launch, we didn't know that some types of products were not featured in Product Hunt. They're products that have already been launched too many times on the platform and end up lowering the overall quality of the products presented.

These types are:

Deal sites
Courses
Events / limited-time programs
Blog posts/articles
Lists / Directories
Guides

In our case we're a directory, so we would have a REALLY low chance of being featured.

Tip #2 - Don't waste time with GIFs

Several guides you will find on the internet indicate that your Product Hunt logo must be a Gif.

This information itself is not wrong, just out of date. For those who don't know, in the past, gifs were automatic on the home page. But after some updates in Product Hunt, they became static and only start if there is a mouse hover or at the start of the product page.

This change greatly reduces the influence of a gif on your final result. So if you're investing a lot of time on this front, put it aside.

Unless you have a designer and plenty of time to prepare, focus on distribution or the product that will bring you the most return.

Tip #3 - Understand the difference between Posted and Featured

It's not very clear even in the Product Hunt guides, but not every product that gets posted will go to the home page.

After turning the day, some products are selected for the homepage (those are the featured ones) and others are only on the newest tab.

The ones that go to the newest are the ones posted and they even get some traffic, but it doesn't compare to being on the home page.

Well... You kind of "wasted" a launch.

Tip #4 - Have a clear goal for your launch

Being featured is not your goal. Converting is your goal.

Be clear about what kind of conversion you are looking for and start measuring it. Even if everything goes wrong, it could be that you were successful.

In our case, we wanted people registered on our mailing list and we had 200 in one day. For us, this was a huge success.

Tip #5 - Distribute, Distribute, Distribute

Don't expect that just launching on Product Hunt will be enough to get you the traffic and conversions you're looking for.

Becoming No. 1 on Product Hunt is super tricky. Focus on getting people to leave feedback on PH. That'll help you move up in ranks and increase your chances of converting some users.

Tip #6 - The first few hours are the most important

You can follow the releases in Product Wars. It's a great tool to understand how your competitors are doing that day.

One of the main lessons learned from Product Wars is that the first few hours will largely dictate the outcome at the end of the day. Products higher up will get more attention and it will be easier to monopolize engagement.

So get ready for the first few minutes and hours after launch.

Well... we failed but succeeded?

We didn't know about these 6 tips. When we launched we didn't get featured, just posted.

Although our distribution saved the launch, we still had great traffic.

Above all, we achieved our goal. We had 200 people signing up for our mailing and we learned how to launch on Product Hunt.

I hope these tips help you out too and if you need a platform for collecting and managing feedback take a look at productgears.com.