Mixed experience with our first ProductHunt launch
On 11 April we launched on Product Hunt with high ambitions. While it wasn't a complete failure, we weren't exactly happy with the results. Some of it was in our hands, but we were also a bit suprised by the actual process and perhaps lack of tranparency.
We started preparing for our launch about a month in advance. We followed detailed checklists from Lenny's Newsletter and Social Growth Labs, and used a Notion template to coordinate all efforts. This included building a full asset library, social media posts for our channels, and content our team could easily share.
That said, not everything went as planned. The new website was only ready the night before launch, and while our Product Hunt page was finished a few days in advance, we missed a key growth lever: launching a "coming soon" page. Many of the top-performing products that day already had followers lined up weeks in advance. We didn’t.
We shared Will across Slack groups, LinkedIn, X, and startup communities. But one-to-many posts didn’t move the needle much. Where we saw real traction was through one-on-one DMs. Personal outreach on LinkedIn, built on years of growing our network, made all the difference.
In the end, Will received nearly 100 upvotes and over 50 thoughtful comments. We heard from people who were genuinely excited about the product and impressed by how personal, intuitive, and useful it felt.
Some of our favourite reactions:
“The output is way better than other AI tools in the market.”
“I’ve tried ghostwriters but hated how impersonal it felt. This sounds refreshingly simple.”
“No dashboards. No stress. Just results.”
Still, not being featured meant we got little organic exposure on the platform itself.
Lesson learned: Give yourself more runway. Build your audience early. Make sure you have a long list of people you can contact. And know that if you're not featured, the chances of breakout success are slim.
But would we do it again? Absolutely. Launching Will sparked valuable conversations, surfaced real user feedback, and reinforced the strength of our community.
For more detailed insights about the launch, have a look at our founder's video in which he explains what went right, what went wrong, and what we found a bit surprising.
The "Coming Soon" page miss is one of the most common and painful. I've seen it cost launches hundreds of upvotes in the first hour. The difference between a launch with 200 followers waiting on day one vs. zero is enormous because PH's algorithm weights velocity heavily in the first 30 minutes, and that early momentum is almost impossible to recover from if you start behind.
One thing that rarely gets mentioned: your first comment matters almost as much as your headline. I treat the maker's first comment as a second pitch; it's where you show the why, the personal story, and the problem you actually lived through. People upvote humans, not products.
One silver lining of a mixed launch is the data you now have. You know your audience, your conversion from PH traffic to signups, and what messaging resonated. Most first-time launchers don't think about relaunch, but PH allows it, and a second launch with everything dialed in often outperforms the first.