How random is the success on Product Hunt, really?
A year and a half ago I launched [1] my product (a time tracker) on ProductHunt and I was happy to see it making the front page, generating significant traffic.
I've improved the product in many ways since then, made it open source, and hired a designer. I assumed it'd do at least as good now. I was wrong.
Today I launched [2] again, but it got only 3 upvotes, so it never climbed out of the abyss of posts-most-people-never-even-see.
My theory is that a post needs a bit of luck obtaining a few votes from the start to get sufficiently high-up so that people actually see it. There are of course some strategies to help with this, like asking 'support' from your existing audience. Perhaps I did that better last time. Nevertheless, I feel disappointed and it feels so very random :(
Anyone else who had similar (or contrary) experiences?
[1] https://www.producthunt.com/posts/timeturtle
[2] https://www.producthunt.com/posts/timetagger
Been through the same experience myself.
If you don't have an audience (which I didn't), you pretty much don't stand a chance.
It is what it is - I took it as "I had to finally launch my product anyway, so that forced me to actually make it in <<launch shape>>"
I think it also helps to launch in stages. Get an initial audience via IH and other channels, make changes base on their feedback, and then do a bigger launch on PH. Could think of more stages in between in other channels too.
Right, that makes sense. A few things:
Oh well, I'll look into relaunching on PH 6 months from now :)
We all make mistakes. You cannot do this stuff flawless. My tip would be to find where (who?) your audience is, and try to involve them. Make them part of the journey.
Thanks! That's my current goal :)
I agree with you. We also launched twice and we thought about having a lot more visibility. We had more followers and users since the first time but it wasn't enough. If you don't have a list of people that will support you in the first hour of the launch there is a small chance that you end up in the top 3.
I'm yet to launch ruttl on Product Hunt. Just crossing my fingers haha! 👀
Good luck. I guess today's lesson is to try using your existing audience to get an initial boost ;) Ruttl looks great, BTW!
I will surely use you tip haha! And thank you so much for that positive feedback! ✨
Yeah that is strange. Did you do the exact same things for each launch?
There are a few minor differences, like e.g. the icon was more interesting then (it showed the app first, now it shows the logo with a little motion added).
Reading back my notes from the first launch I realize that I did send an email to all subscribed users. That was fine back then, because the product was rather beta. If I had done it for yesterdays launch it'd be more spammy, considering the users expectations.
The same notes mention "ProductHunt is an audience multiplier", seems very true.