Is launching on Product Hunt worth it?
There's so much out there on HOW to launch here on PH, but not so much of a discussion on whether it's worth the effort.
After our launch where we took #1 product of the day, I sat down to run an analysis on whether it was worth it or not:
‘Worth it’ is a relative term. For us it was, despite traffic, signups and purchases undershooting our expectations.
So why was it worth it?
The benefits to launching were:
-
10,000+ eyeballs on our website and social media accounts. There’s something to be said for having a ‘launch’ day, Product Hunt or not. It galvanizes the team, friends and users around a specific event and so we received more shares, retweets and organic engagement than any other normal day. It’s important to note that most of these didn’t actually come through the Product Hunt launch, rather from the buzz we generated around it.
-
300+ app downloads. On the two days spanning our launch (depending on time zone) we had over 300 app installs, which could easily cost $1500 at a $5 CPI.
-
20 new subscribers. Our launch was among the first few days we shifted to a subscription model so while 20 subscriptions was less than what we had hoped for, it was still a good boost and the users who joined have been high quality engaged users.
So was our Product Hunt launch worth it? Given our cost of the ~70 hours we spent preparing the launch (and that we self produced all our creatives), then undoubtedly yes.
I Put all our findings, research and launch plan here:
https://www.alpeaudio.com/post/is-launching-on-product-hunt-worth-it-and-how-to-do-it
Curious to hear your thoughts on this topic!
Thank you for sharing! I think I'm starting to see a pattern - if other makers are not your target audience, PH will not be huge boost to recurring users.
Still worth it for the motivation, and unknown opportunities I'd say. Big congrats on getting #1 of the day!
Also worth noting that whilst your target audience might not be directly there us PHers are always sharing new tools / toys with our pleb friends who may just be that target user. 😊
Thanks :-)
Yes, agreed on noting the difference in target audience. I'm also thinking it's a longer term game where over time launching should get better since I have engaged more with the community there.
I've thought that too. After all, it makes sense, if your target market is there. Similar to appsumo, it makes sense if you target audience is there. Otherwise, probably not.
I think you said it yourself PH #1 was worth about $1500 in paid installs, minus a bit because it isn't reproducible (you can't do it again tomorrow or next week)
If you aren't going to hit #1 and PH audience aren't your target market then it quickly drops to low $100s in terms of equivalent paid ads.
My opinion is it's a lottery with a low payout for quite a lot of hours spent.
Agreed. I think you either go for #1 or drop it, although it can be minimally helpful for SEO as well
It's not like a huge time-consuming thing to launch on PH, you can get all the materials and prepare for it quite easily. So why not do it?
Def worth it.
I think you either go for #1, which is time consuming or drop it basically. Launching without much support or work doesn't get you far.
My side is that you should go for it since it's not a big investment that is needed.
You could basically set everything up in 1 day, including some marketing stuff.
Just do it, if you're starting out or just launching there's no reason not to do it.
True, but in a test run I did doing that I don't think I crossed the 5 upvotes 😅since I didn't ask anyone to upvote it and the products that worked on it overtook all the organic ones in 5 minutes, so it wasn't even worth that time.
I would still argue that it's worth it.
I had a failed launch on there but still got some traffic from it afterwards, I'm still getting followers on PH, and upvotes, it could also be good for SEO.
But yeah If you don't plan to market it at all it's not worth it. But as I mentioned above I think you can create a plan and do all the work in 1 day. Then you can use that to "intro" your project on other sites to ;)
Just my two cents :)
Good points on SEO, agreed
Did you have a comprehensive launch strategy when you put in on product hunt? Or you just posted it on a whim?
We had a very comprehensive strategy, did a lot of research and outlined what and why we did in a blog -
https://www.alpeaudio.com/post/is-launching-on-product-hunt-worth-it-and-how-to-do-it
Nice congratulations.
Would you say that ~70 hrs is a relatively normal (or required) investment? Is there a way to maybe 80/20 that and perhaps cut the hours?
Thanks! The effort was in research, preparing the materials and then spending a day (quite literally) messaging people, emailing, posting to get to #1, I think the post I just wrote about it can save you most of the time researching. If you have marketing materials ready, that can save that time, but you'll still have to drum up support
Oh wow, okay yeah that sounds like some heavy lifting! Thanks for the info
Of course it's "worth it", but it's definitely not enough. Marketing is effort, you need to do it.
My 2c: I do think PH is worth launching on even if other product maker are not your target audience, the effort spent can be minimal and you can gain some quick feedback and potential users.
Love the research and congrats on your launch!
Thanks! Yes, in general I do agree, although did learn more about who the PH community is.
This comment was deleted 3 years ago.
Why do you think so?
This comment was deleted 3 years ago.
Really interesting! Which product was smack in the demographic? A dev tool of some kind?
This comment was deleted 3 years ago.
This comment was deleted 2 years ago.
I second this. It helped me get a few customers to try out my product in the early stages and give me valuable feedback - but it can't be relied on for either a full launch or post-launch traction.
Agreed. I think we also learned that it really depends on your product and community...Most of my community isn't on PH, so the genuine feedback wasn't as much as hoped.