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I got 3rd place on Product hunt and here is the behind the scenes

Hey guys,

I am so happy to share that I got 3rd place in Product Hunt yesterday with my new illustrations library of 3D characters:

See here:
https://www.producthunt.com/posts/characterz

Some of you can be interested in behind the scenes and maybe get inspired.

BASICS

I followed advices from @mattcrail and to be more concrete:

  • launch on the beginning of PH round, for me 9:00 CEST
  • I took a vacation from a full-time job to support it as much as I can. It was super needed to have time just for the launch and promotion.
  • I have prepared all the needed materials to show the value to the future customer.
  • I used a badge on my webpage

btw; I was online 18 hours that day.

Matt has his checklist, which can be helpful for you: https://taskablehq.com/blog/checklist-launching-product-hunt

Social Media

  • I tweeted on Twitter about the launch. Didn't get much traction. Last time I got 60+ likes, many retweets, ... Now I did the same, and it didn't work 🤷
  • I posted on Linkedin and it got reshared by people I don't know (5k views). Many people from India came :-)
  • Few other fellow indie hackers from the @lunadio community helped me to create hype. Especially @tmvst, @cwt, and @manyTomas. I love their empathy. See more: https://lunadio.party/
  • I got 100+ upvotes on Reddit than I got kicked -> /internetisbeautiful ¯\(ツ)/¯
  • I tried HackerNews - no luck. Even I did SHOW HN. Nobody cared.
  • I got 2nd Milestone of the day here on IH

Numbers

  • I got 30 new connections on Linkedin. They seem like designers who actually live. No bots.
  • up to 10 new followers on Twitter
  • 2300 views of the web
  • Few people bought the product, but the most important thing is that few other interesting people in the field recognized the work.

Hidden value

  • I know many people will not see it that way, but I think some people like badges, certificates, and all of these things. I think it can help in the future if I want to present my products to someone or pitch the idea to investors 🤷

Side note

Because I have been building products for designers, I got some followers from previous launches which helped me to get 3rd place. Also, I pretty know where designers hang out because I am one of them. Which is a huge benefit, if you know your user/customer. I am part of the community of potential customers.

Also, to get 3rd place on Saturday and on a weekday is different. If you care about the badge, go on Saturday. If you care about traffic, try weekday (higher competition). Been there, done that.

Sometimes the competition is so hard to overvote. In my case, it was a product hunted by the CEO of Figma (a design tool is known among all designers). I knew it will be almost impossible to do. I am a small indie maker with a full-time job :-)

I am grateful, how random people appreciate the work of an indie maker. It is just amazing. Without them, you can't do anything.

Fun facts

  • I provided support in French and Spanish. I know nothing about these languages 🤷 But Google Translate and a friend of mine helped me with that. I think people got impressed :-D

  • Thanks to a mistake with Gumroad I had to chance to speak with my users and we had the ability to get to know each other. I sent 200 e-mails with the wrong instructions. You can guess the embarrassment I had. Most of them turned out to be super nice. Now we know each other better.

  • I had no clue that there are some Telegram groups in the Russian language where people talk about design tools. It is time to change Google Translate to the Russian language! 😎

Launching on a product hunt can be overrated. But for sure, it is fun for indie makers to do. There is something special about launching a product and seeing people respond to that. If the engagement is good around your product, you can do it into TOP 5. If not, it will be a pain, but still, you can do it.

I see it as a long game rather than one peak. We will see what feature will bring. I have some other ideas I want to push now.

If you want to, feel free to follow my journey at Twitter: https://twitter.com/SamuelBriskar

Have a great day!

  1. 1

    @Semy I upvoted it on PH. Only few people bought (considering you got 3rd place)? :O How many sales did you end up getting for the product?

  2. 1

    This is great! I think I may launch on product hunt down the road and this is really helpful.

    1. 1

      You are welcome. And I wish you luck with your launch! :-)

  3. 1

    This is awesome advice and some great resources! I hope to be launching on Product Hunt soon so wish me luck! If anyone has any more advice, please share it with me!

    1. 1

      David, thanks a lot! :-) Product hunt is wild place. I wish you luck and have fun! :)

  4. 1

    First of all congrats on those amazing results and thanks for sharing your advice.

    Regarding your translations: You should check out https://translatestack.com/ to have the full control over your translations and even scale to regions.

    1. 2

      Thanks a lot for the advice! :-) I will take a look, it seems promising.

  5. 1

    Congrats! I like the looks of these people. It's much better than the trend these days of weirdly shaped humans (tiny heads, arms and legs like tree trunks). Nice work!

    1. 1

      Thanks, Steven. This is pure personal preference :-)

  6. 1

    Thanks for sharing!

    1. 1

      You are welcome :-)

  7. 1

    Nice! Thanks for sharing, and good luck in the future. Keep us updated 😉

    1. 1

      Thanks, @ctw! I will :)

  8. 1

    Nice work as always Sam 🎉

    1. 1

      Thanks, Matt for preparing the Checklist! :)

  9. 1

    I appreciate the mention.

    I have following your work from the beginning, and I must admit that it's impressive. Thus, the 3rd place is well earned. Congrats, and keep up the good work.

    1. 1

      Thanks, Tomas a lot for the support! :)
      I would love to tell everyone that I know exactly what I was doing, but sometimes, it just comes.

  10. 1

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