How my first launch on Product Hunt went from being hidden for 10+ hours to #3 in the last minutes!
It’s not every day you launch a product that’s your brainchild, your late-night obsession. For us, that day was marked on the calendar in red — the Product Hunt launch of Synced.so. Little did we know, it would be a day filled with mishaps, twists, and a bittersweet ending.
A Little About Me and Synced
Hey everyone, I'm Parul! Over the last two months, I've been fully dedicated to building Synced.so. As a first-time founder, this journey has been an incredible mix of challenges and triumphs. Find me on Product Hunt here, I can't wait to share this journey with you!
Two Days Prior: The Curveball
Our countdown was abruptly interrupted two days before launch. I remember the sinking feeling when I realized I couldn’t engage on Product Hunt. Comments, posts — everything essential for a successful launch was suddenly off-limits. We were in disbelief. Was this really happening? It felt like running a marathon and hitting a wall at the final stretch.
After a flurry of discussions, we decided to delay the launch by a day. It was a tough pill to swallow, but we knew it was necessary. We needed that platform to tell our story, to engage with the community. Without it, we were shouting into the void.
The Product Hunt team later resolved it, citing a connected Twitter account to be the issue.
Launch Day: A Slow Start
Finally, launch day arrived. The first few hours were surreal. We were there, but not quite. Our product was up, but we weren’t visible. ‘It’s just a slow start,’ we told ourselves, trying to stay optimistic. The page is shuffled at random for the first 4 hours, but we never saw ourselves.
The upvotes trickled in — over 130, in fact. All of these votes were from people who had signed up for our “Coming Soon” page and got notified. But without visibility, they felt like silent cheers in an empty stadium.
The Panic
As morning turned to afternoon, the weight of the situation began to sink in. We were stuck in the shadows, unseen by anyone on Product Hunt. We approached Product Hunt support but only got this response.
When we realized our launch wasn’t going as planned, Rohan(@rohanrecommends on PH), our Hunter, stepped in with practical advice to approach the support team to get it reviewed again.
I remember pacing around, phone in hand, waiting for a response from the Product Hunt team. The clock was ticking, and with each passing minute, our hopes were dwindling down. We were still hovering around #7 according to our votes, but it felt like we were standing still while everyone else raced ahead.
The Turning Point
It was almost 11:30 PM here, just half an hour shy of midnight. As the world around us was winding down for the night, we were still glued to our screens. We were on the verge of calling it quits, the disappointment heavy in our hearts. Then, just as we were packing up, resigned to our fate, my phone buzzed. It was the notification we had been desperately waiting for — we were back on Product Hunt, visible again on the featured page just half an hour shy of midnight our time.
The Night Shift
What followed was a blur of activity. We rushed back, adrenaline replacing our exhaustion. To our astonishment, we were at #7. It was the spark we needed. We worked through the night, fueled by coffee and the excitement of climbing up the ranks. By the time we finally allowed ourselves a moment of rest, we had crept up to #6.
An Unexpected Morning
The morning brought with it the biggest surprise yet. Rubbing the sleep from our eyes, we saw it — #4 on Product Hunt. It was more than a rank; it was a testament to the community’s support, despite our rocky start. The comments section was bustling with activity, feedback flowing in, and our spirits soared.
Engagement and Outreach
The day was spent engaging with the community. We replied to comments, shared our story, and reached out across different platforms. We were more than founders or developers that day; we were storytellers, and advocates for our vision.
We got a lot of comments from members of the community, giving us feedback and support.
Since Product Hunt doesn’t set ranking based on upvotes alone, despite being outvoted by others, our position improved, a testament to the quality of our engagement and the strength of our product.
The Final Stretch
Then came the climax in the final hours. I was out grabbing coffee for the team when Neel called. His voice was flat, almost hesitant, “We’re not at #4 anymore,” he said, a pause hanging in the air, “we’re at #3.” My heart skipped a beat.
We fluctuated between #3 and #4 in a nail-biting half hour, but as the last minutes ticked down, we solidified our spot at #3. These were our stats in the last 30 minutes of the day.
Reflections on a Day of Dramatic Twists
Reflecting on our launch, it’s evident that the lost hours affected us — fewer site visitors, signups, and the engagement we had hoped for. But, looking at what we achieved despite these challenges, we feel a strong sense of satisfaction. We’re thankful for the community’s incredible support, which really turned things around for us. It wasn’t the launch day we planned, but it turned out to be a remarkable experience that showed us the strength of our product and the power of community backing.
Here's our Product Hunt launch if anyone's interested.
Our first week’s stats coming up shortly. You can check us out on synced.so :)
A lovely read. I am researching about how to kick start marketing.
I just read interview /post/success-sucks-all-the-fun-happens-along-the-way-69d1451e1b where it was mentioned that he only launched it on Product Hunt and got people ready to pay and he got the motivation to go on!
Please share the outcome also.
Wow, just reading this made my heart beat faster, can only imagine how it was for you that day :) Great accomplishment!
I see you got a few hundred people interested on Product Hunt, but can you share how this interested converted to actual website visits and interest for the product? Do you think those people were your target audience that could stay and pay or just enthusiasts looking for new product and leaving?
Hahaha, thanks!
I'll be writing up a detailed blog about our results soon :)
Congratulations on the launch! Launching in Product Hunt is always thrilling. I've personally made some launches and each one is always a new adventure.
I'm sure Synced will now get plenty of visibility and you'll have a nice user base to care for and support.
Most of my products were only launched there, and the traffic they can get you is amazing, not only on the first days but on the long run too!
All the best to you!
Thanks a lot! :D
A wonderful writeup @parul0_0 ! Reading it made me relive the whole roller coaster experience.
What a ride we had!
Congratulations on your first launch and a remarkable one indeed. 🤝
Thank you Mehak :))
Hate to be the one to rain on this parade, but here's the hard truths about Product Hunt launches:
I know that a "good" PH launch has become a rite of passage for indie hackers. I wish this notion would go away. People think it's the door through which you must pass to have a "proper" product.
My opinion is that you would be far better off investing the time prepping for a launch into 1 or 2 really good blog posts. These will draw traffic for years to come.
what a roller coaster of a story with so many ups and downs. btw congrats on the launch
Thank you! :)
Wonderful Parul! Great Job. You are doing great. Keep doing and many many congratulation on the launch.
Super powerful journey Parul. I gonna take it for me and I'll try to reproduce it
Thanks!! Good luck :)
I can feel the intensity in your words hahaha. That must have been a day that you will rememebr for years.
Two things I thought of when I read your post: You have a very good team that sticks together in moment of challange. And the team has the "never give up" attitude.
This is a great asset!
I hope you succeed!
Haha, thank you! We were indeed brought together in disbelief/adversity :)
Congrats! How did you build up that waitlist effectively? Was it mainly from engaging on the other projects in the Product Hunt community itself and inviting them to your waitlist before the launch takes place. Or did you get signups from Twitter and Indiehackers too.
We stayed active on Product Hunt for a couple of months before our launch, commenting and posting diligently. We also connected with the PH community on Linkedin, but weren't all that active on Twitter or IndieHackers
Awesome, would definitely like to do a written interview with you on your launch / pre launch strategy to add to my gallery at growtharchive.xyz whenever you free.
That sounds cool! Please DM me on twitter - https://twitter.com/parul0_0 :)
Nice one! Quite an adventure, isn't it? Haha. Congratulations on the launch!
It really was! Thanks :)
This was an awesome read. I've never launched on PH but it seemed like it was quite the adventure.
It really was! It's usually less exciting(nerve-wracking) .
Mind me asking - how long did it take you to prep everything for PH?
We had to push our launch a couple of times, but ideally aim to get a coming soon page out a couple of weeks before if possible, and in that time reach out to people from different Product Hunt groups and communities.
That was by the time you launch, you should have an already engaged audience :)
Nice job! Very interesting story.
My congratulations, thank you for sharing.)
Thank you! :)
Wow @parul0_0
That's quite an exciting launch story! I just signed up for Synced.so because I have been on the hunt for a simple to-set-up help center for a while now. I will try to use it for our website ZeroAdo. And built on Notion, that's quite one of its kind.
Today, we launched Zixflow on Product Hunt. Call it luck; we are also trending at #3; feeling your emotions!
It's a product of my friend, and I have been using it for 3+ months since its beta launch to manage the entire content marketing and sales pipeline. Great experience.
If you have 5 minutes to spare, take a look. I think being a fan of the simplicity you are bringing with Synced, you will also like it here: https://www.producthunt.com/posts/zixflow
Best of luck with Synced; I will set it up now.
Keep building :)
Cheers!
Thanks Vishnu! Zixflow looks awesome, best of luck with your launch! 💜
Congratulations on your launch!
Thanks Pulkit! 💜
How does synced.so differ from https://www.helpkit.so/ (which is another indie hacker product)?
Great story!
Thanks mate!
Nice work!
Thank you :)
Awesome Parul! Glad to see how we can change with consistency and small actions! All the best on the next!
Thank you! :)
Luck favored and the small marketings or tasks you did in between, did the magic.
Hopefully, you got the visitors/signups also.
You guys were lucky since they reverted back on time!
Something similar happened to us as well, our product got lost and was never featured. Also it didn't showed up on hunter's hunted list, on contacting PH team they allowed us to re-schedule it!
Ahh, that's terrible! It seems like it is somewhat common.
Congratulation @parul0_0
you did an splendid job
Thank you!!
Congratulations on your launch! It is motivating me, and thanks for sharing the story!
Thank you! 🙌🏻
Great job! I'm glad to hear that it went so smoothly - 10 hours hidden doesn't seem like much, but can be nerve-wracking! Glad to see things went well.
Thank you!! :)
That's a story to remember :) Congrats
It really is! Thanks :D
That's a great story and you have written it really wonderfully.
Thank you :)
What specific strategies did you use to engage with the community on Product Hunt during your launch, especially considering the initial visibility challenges?
The people who had signed up for our "coming soon" page (330+) came through for us. Since they got notified and got the page access even when we were unfeatured.
After 10 hours, when we got reinstated, we were at 180 upvotes and still ended up at #7.
Beyond that, a lot of people found us from the home page itself, and we posted and interacted on Linkedin, Twitter, and Reddit.
I love everything about this, @parul0_0. Fantastic writeup, lovely use of imagery to illustrate your journey. Thank you so much for sharing!
Thank you for your kind words! 💜
A wonderful writeup @parul0_0 !
Thank you :D
That's a good start. I'm planning to launch my startup design subscription agency 👇
https://www.pentaclay.com
Though I launched my website 2 weeks ago and I do have active clients, I haven't prepared myself to launch in Product Hunt.
I'm thinking of getting some familiarity with X, Reddit, and Indiehackers so that I can get support when launch.
Pentaclay looks awesome, I'm sure you'll do well on PH :)
Amazing story of product launch. I was thinking on how can I help you, so I made keywords analysis for your business.
I have a tool that can go tru thousands of keywords for your specific market and target customer and perform analysis on those keywords to come out with top 100 keywords to rank for your business.
I think this keyword analysis will help you in the future so have a look : SYNCED.SO KEYWORDS ANALYSIS
You can also perform the analysis your self using decentool.com
Wow! That looks really interesting and exact. We'll be checking decentool out!
Congrats on a great result! Certainly not an easy process, but it worked out in the end.
It was quite a rollercoaster of a day, but all's well that ends well ;)
congrats with the hectic road! I plan to launch on PH in the next month, this was a valuable read!
Thanks :)
I'll be posting an AMA about our launch on PH, you can check it out for more info :) https://www.producthunt.com/@parul0_0