I postponed my Product Hunt launch because 90 lifetime visits is not an audience

I’d separate “audience” from “qualified demand” here.

For templates, I wouldn’t wait until October just to grow a general following. I’d use the delay to prove one narrow buyer path: one template, one painful project type, one place those buyers already ask for help.

For example: “Next.js SaaS starter for founders adding auth, billing, and onboarding this week” is easier to validate than “Next.js templates.”

I’d try to get 10 direct conversations before the launch. Ask what they’re building, what they’ve already tried, what they’d pay to avoid setting up, and whether they’d buy the specific template today at the launch price. If they won’t buy now, ask what would have to be included for it to become an obvious yes.

Then Product Hunt becomes amplification of a message that already converted somewhere else, not the first test of whether anyone cares.

It doesn't feel ethical to me to do distribution without a product. So I prefer talking to people about the problem I want to solve, rather than distributing a product that doesn't exist. That way I can evaluate if the product is worth building. I also wonder if having a simple MVP and a short demo video would be useful for distribution. Did you think about that? Or do you think it is just a delay?

I'm curious what evidence convinced you postponing the launch was the better bet than using the launch itself to discover whether distribution was actually the bottleneck.

That seems like a difficult decision to make before seeing the outcome either way.

Postponing PH at 90 visits is the right call — cold launch is usually a coin flip you lose.

Curious where you’re building the audience for the next few months — Reddit/forums, X, newsletter, something else?

If Reddit is in the mix: I built a daily scored digest for that hunt (threads where people already want templates/boilerplate). Happy to show a sample on your niche — or ignore if channel is different.