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10 Comments

Launched on Product Hunt but.....

Hi IndieHackers

We launched our product Vizard on Product Hunt today. We got a decent upvotes and traction in the initial hours but we were not features on the popular list of Product Hunt today. To our surprise there were products with lesser upvotes and comments on the Popular section. This is a litlle disheartening but maybe we did something wrong, not sure. Please have a look at our posting : https://www.producthunt.com/posts/vizard-studio

Your feedback on what may have done wrong would be really helpful.

Thanks

  1. 8

    ProductHunt is very hit-or-miss. I've seen boring stuff get tons of votes and useful tools get nothing. So I wouldn't necessarily assume you did anything wrong. Although a lot of the top stuff has similarities, like:

    • Founders with huge followings to help increase the votes.
    • A free product (or at least a free tier).

    With your price point, maybe it's only the people who upvote without actually looking and the people most interested in your product.

    I'm curious - are you also the creator of the Vizard video app on Shopify?

    1. 2

      Hey Andrew,

      Thanks for a well structured and rational reply. I agree with you on these points. I was just unable to understand why products with lesser upvotes and comments featured in Popular list while we missed. No whining just want to understand how it works.

      And yes we are the creators of Vizard Video App on Shopify. Good to have that recognition here.

      Thanks and Regards
      Rahul

      1. 1

        Eh, might not be the recognition you want, although I did think your app was cool :)

        I spent 3 months building an animation + rendering app, then spent another 3 months making it template-based and getting it on the Shopify app store. So I'm technically a competitor (Brisa Videos), but my app hasn't really gotten many users. I thought going the app store route would make it a lot easier to get users, but even making it free didn't lead to many signups. And Shopify forums/FB groups are rough!

        Cool to see you expanding and building new apps, and hope you're successful!

  2. 3

    PH isn't that important man. We launched on there ~1.5 months ago and did pretty well. However, we have a real community and beta testers that were excited about our launch.

    Doing well on PH requires a lot more than just having a good product imo. There's a lot of legwork that goes into it.

    They also say you don't need a hunter to hunt you but it absolutely makes a difference. In any case, PH shouldn't be a significant part of your growth strategy. If it is, you might have bigger issues to address!

    1. 1

      Hey there,

      I understand your views on this and agree with them that you have to build your own community of testers and users who will ultimately be your evangelists. I am not complaining about failing to get into the featured section on PH but I wanted to understand the shortcoming for some future posting maybe. And yeah I agree PH shouldn't be a significant part of growth strategy but it definitely gives some visibility.

      Would love to know more about your product. Thanks again man. Cheers

      1. 1

        My point is that I wouldn't spend more time worrying about how to "succeed" on PH, but rather focus on your users or potential users. There's nothing fundamentally wrong with your listing. There isn't any "magic" tricks to do it either. I have a number of friends who have hit #1 Product of the Day as well as Week.

        Having evangelists is key. Having evangelists who are prominent members in the tech community is even better. Not all votes are weighted equally. That's why your listing was lower than others.

  3. 1

    We have a similar experience with PH. Our first launch did super well even though we had no idea what we were doing or how to "hack" it. Second launch, planned to detail, was a real miss.

  4. 1

    Ditto on PH being hit or miss. I like Vizard's value proposition, though. I'll have to keep it in mind.

    1. 1

      Oh Thanks a lot Davis. We can definitely continue discussion or can even fix a demo call of the product whenever you are interested. Do ping.

      Regards
      Rahul

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