🐱Learnings from getting 280 upvotes and 121 comments on ProductHunt without any pre-existing social presence
Hey fellow hackers,
I launched knowledgehunt - a free platform that curates the best startup-related content on the web - on ProductHunt on the 29th of March. I chose the most active day, Wednesday, and ended up as #8. I had close to 0 prior audience. Here are my specific learnings from the process:
1. It is best to outreach on LinkedIn to get pre-launch followers
I had no social presence on Twitter or LinkedIn before the launch. I tried many different methods of cold outreach to notify people about it, and LinkedIn worked the best.
Use the 'connect' function that lets you send under 300-characters long text messages. You don't need a premium account to do this. Start doing it as early as possible because LinkedIn has the maximum amount of connects that you can send per week.
2. It is best to outreach to people who are active on ProductHunt
Go to ProductHunt launches and see the profiles of users who interacted with other similar launches - either commented or liked. Usually, in their profile you would find either the LinkedIn or Twitter of the user. Outreach to those people because they are super friendly and helpful + it makes more sense to outreach to people who interacted with similar launches.
Another good option is to go to ProductHunt's LinkedIn page and outreach to people who like PH posts.
3. The first 2 hours are crucial
PH recently made changes. The home page is randomized for the first 2 hours, and no number of upvotes are visible. After only 2 hours, it appears.
If you are in the top 4 places after first 2 hours, your chances of getting rapid upvotes is hugely increased. Make sure to spam your launch to every single platform and person you know in that time period. Aim to get around 100 upvotes.
4. People cheat, and they don't get banned
Be prepared that some products will cheat, especially in the early hours. ProductHunt does an excellent job of detecting them, but it takes time and may happen after a few hours. Also, products don't get banned; rather, their 'bot' upvotes get deleted.
5. You need luck
No one knows who is launching when except for the PH team. If you are lucky, you won't get big players launching on the same day. Competing against a team of dozen people is very hard as a solopreneur.
6. Be brave to create your product launch page as early as possible because you can make any changes to it + can change the launch day
I was hesitant to create my page until I got all the materials ready, but I was wrong. I did not know that you could make any changes to your product page, including changing the launch day. Having it early helps you to get more pre-launch followers.
7. Results of my launch
On the launch day and the day after, I got around 800 website visits. Almost 300 visitors became registered users, which is crazy good for us. We got tons of great feedback that we can integrate on our landing page.
We are still getting traffic from our launch because Knoweldgehunt was mentioned in a few Tweets, and LinkedIn posts, and some companies featured us.
Main takeaway
Embrace the process and enjoy it. Don't overstress yourself, as there are some conditions you can not control. If your product is good and you prepare well, you will get the attention that will be a great push for your company.
About knowledgehunt
We spend dozen hours curating the best free resources on the web and presenting it to the community in a single, easy-to-use platform. We already have curated 400+ free reports, guides, videos, courses, lists, and more.
Feel free to ask my anything :)
Thanks for sharing! This is super helpful! I was always wondering how people were finding my LinkedIn and Twitter to reach out to about their Product Hunt launches ;)
Will definitely be incorporating these learnings for some upcoming launches!
Good luck with launches :)
Thanks for sharing! I launched on 3 Apr for the first time, and I managed to get a 3rd for a B2B product for web3 projects, which is quite surprising for the team and me as well.
The biggest learning that I've got:
Make good use of the time zone differences
Our headquarter is located in Hong Kong and we have clients across the globe. We send out invitations and messaging to our clients and investors in APAC first, then to those in EMEA, like you have said, the early few hours matters a lot if you can rank high for later, so reaching out to APAC clients who are more active for the first few hours is super helpful!