Launched yesterday. Here's what I learned.
Yesterday I launched Avooq on Product Hunt. The result was exactly what you'd expect from launching without a pre-built audience — silence.
I'm not discouraged. It confirmed what I already knew: distribution is the problem, not the product. Users who find Avooq generate full novels. The question I'm chasing now is whether they come back — and whether they'd pay to do it again. That's my PMF signal.
What Avooq does: describe the story you want to read or write, get a complete coherent novel instantly. The Entity Tracker keeps every character and plot thread consistent across hundreds of pages — the core technical problem nobody had solved for long-form AI fiction.
Currently focused on finding the readers who can't find the exact story they want — and getting them in front of the product.
If you've found PMF in a consumer creative tool — what was the moment you knew?
Launched TalentedAtAI yesterday — same experience, same
lesson.
The silence on launch day without a pre-built audience is
clarifying rather than discouraging. It confirms the real
work is distribution, not the product.
The Entity Tracker solving consistency across hundreds of
pages is the right problem to solve — that's exactly where
long-form AI generation falls apart. Curious how you handle
contradictions when the model introduces them mid-novel.
On PMF for consumer creative tools — the signal I'd watch
is whether people come back unprompted, not whether they
complete a novel. Completion is a one-time event. Return
visits mean they're integrating it into how they create.
Silent launches are actually very normal, so don’t take it as a bad sign.
For a tool like this, you know you’re close to PMF when people come back by themselves, keep building the same story, and feel a bit stuck when they can’t use it anymore. That’s the real signal.
Start with a small, specific group of users and focus on whether they return, not just whether they try it once.
Exactly this. The return visit is the only signal I'm watching right now — not launch numbers. Thanks for framing it clearly.
Jaime the silence at launch without an audience is real — but the good news is distribution is a solvable problem. The readers you're looking for are very active in places like r/fantasywriters, r/worldbuilding, Wattpad communities and AI fiction Discord servers. Have you started showing up there yet? Happy to share what's working for outreach if useful
Really like how you’re thinking about this especially separating distribution from actual product value.
For creative tools like this, the PMF signal usually shows up less in initial usage and more in return behavior. It’s when users don’t just generate once, but come back with a clearer intent like refining a story, exploring variations, or continuing something they started. That shift from curiosity to reliance is usually the strongest indicator.
One thing that might also be worth looking at is how quickly users understand what Avooq is capable of in that first interaction especially with something as powerful as long-form generation. Sometimes the gap isn’t the product itself, but how clearly that value is experienced early on.
Curious to see how this evolves, its a really interesting space.
“Distribution is the problem, not the product” is usually a comforting lie founders tell themselves early.
If users aren’t coming back or paying yet, that is the product signal, not just distribution.
Fair point, and I'm not dismissing it. The honest answer is I don't know yet whether it's product or distribution (although I have paying customers) — I have users generating novels but not enough return data to separate the two. That's what the next 2-3 weeks will tell me.
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Thanks a lot Samuel, covered for now 🙏
Yeah, Product Hunt silence is painful but also pretty honest feedback — it usually just means distribution hasn’t kicked in yet, not necessarily a product issue.
What’s interesting here is your PMF signal definition — repeat usage + willingness to pay makes a lot of sense, especially for creative tools where novelty can easily be mistaken for value.
We’ve also been thinking a lot about how early signals are rarely ‘launch moments’ and more like small pockets of users who quietly come back without prompting.
Also sharing something I’m building in parallel — You have an idea. $19 puts it in a real competition. Winner gets a Tokyo trip (flights + hotel booked, minimum $500 guaranteed). Round just opened, so best odds right now: tokyolore.com
Product Hunt silence without a pre-built audience is the default outcome — it's not a signal about the product. The signal you're actually watching for is exactly right: does someone who used it once come back?
For a novel generator, that second visit is especially meaningful because the use case is high-commitment. Writing a full novel isn't a passive action — someone who comes back did it deliberately. That's very different from a utility tool people return to by habit.
The Entity Tracker solving long-form consistency is a real technical moat if it works well. Most AI writing tools collapse at chapter 5 when characters start contradicting earlier descriptions. If Avooq holds that together across hundreds of pages, that's the thing worth putting front and center — not the 'instant novel' angle, which sounds like every other AI writing tool.
What does your current user behavior look like? Are return visits within days or weeks?
Return visits are still early data — most users are within the first week. What I'm watching is whether someone generates a second and third novel. That's my PMF line. The Entity Tracker is deliberately front and center for that reason — it's what makes a second novel feel different from the first.
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Nice, congrats on shipping 🙌
Out of curiosity — how are you handling support or user questions so far?
I just launched recently and didn’t expect how quickly things can get messy even with a few users.
Mostly email so far, very manual. Surprisingly manageable at this stage — the conversations are actually useful for understanding what users expected vs what they got.