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Posted my product on PH - now what?

Hi,

as the title says: this morning I posted my first product on PH... aaaaaand got 0 reactions so far. No comments, no upvotes, nothing.

I built the language learning app page91 in full-time for the past couple of months and always got very positive feedback from friends and family. Obviously, it feels like a setback now to not receive any vote from the internet world. I know that PH sometimes has its own rules and products get lost in the flood of new submissions... but still...

I don't have a community yet and it feels like you need one to be successful on PH. Any tips or hints from your side?

If you have any feedback about the PH presentation or the product itself, I would be super happy!

https://www.producthunt.com/posts/page91

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    I too fell into the same boat today with my PH launch for Visual Office getting very little upvotes. I don't think we should read too much into this. Product Hunt is good at generating some buzz, but it is not a sustainable marketing channel or sales strategy.

    This course from Ahrefs (particularly lesson 2-1) reminded me that a 'launch' day might be a short term boost, but it was never going to build a long term business.

    Btw I love the idea, going to download it now. I haven't spoken spanish in a few years, but once tried to read Harry Potter to practice. This seems a lot more approachable :)

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      @msencenb pretty much nailed it. ProductHunt can be a nice little boost in the beginning. Some people see a lot of initial sales or downloads for a short time if their product does alright on there, but it's by no means a long-term channel for marketing and sales.

      I've hunted a few products on there and it's hit or miss if they do well.

    2. 1

      Thanks Matt - I am listening to the course right now :)

      Let me know what you think about it :)

  2. 1

    Dont get discouraged, keep at it. Sales and Marketing can be extremely difficult for developers; it is a whole new field to learn. The project looks great!

    I would take small sections of the articles and then show a few translations as selectable answers. The user then needs to select the correct one to move forward in the article, a bit like a game. As the game progresses it gets more difficult with more words.

    1. 1

      Thanks :)

      I like the idea of adding some gamificiation!

  3. 1

    In my experience, You have to seed a product hunt launch with a little bit of an existing audience (not a ton!) to get enough visibility for it to do its thing organically.

    Getting a top hunter to hunt your post is a good hack for this.

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      Yeah, I guess... Next time :D

  4. 1

    Interesting app! I installed it. A little too difficult for my Spanish level haha

    Have you tried posting to a Spanish subreddit? Looks like the app is free, right? Maybe the intro screen of the app should collect e-mail addresses so you can start growing your audience. After all, if this app doesn't turn out to be "the one" for you, it might be the one that gets your foot in the door to build something that aligns better with your new community's goals!

    But don't count it out. Have you posted to a Spanish subreddit? That could be an easy win.

    But, like me and most other devs, it sounds like you've skipped the step of reaching out to people individually. Cold messaging is hard, but it's where you get the feedback to know (1) if there's interest, (2) what kind of person is interested, and (3) what kind of pivot might be necessary.

    I know it sucks to see this after spending so much time on dev, but a biz is 80% marketing and 20% dev:
    https://www.indiehackers.com/article/why-running-a-business-is-80-marketing-and-only-20-product-57f748a821

    And one Spanish learner's take:
    I know I've used countless "Learn a Language" apps, and I think they're over-formalized and barely useful early on (how often do you think I want to talk about turtles in a new language?! :-P). Taking a class in Mexico with structure but immediate applicability helped way more.

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      Hey Andrew,
      Thanks for your feedback :)

      Yes, the app is for free, however, there is a paywall to access all articles.

      I have posted it to /spanish and /languagelearning with basically no feedback at all. I also posted it yesterday to an "Intermediate/Advanced Spanish" FB group and got a lot of feedback and also app installs :)

      Thanks, cool article. Nails it!

      I agree as I am also a Spanish learner (using my own app hehe) and got bored by Duolingo and so on. That's why I wanted to create something with "real-world" texts. Best regards from Mexico ;)

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        Nice! Sounds like FB is the way to go! Reddit can honestly suck sometimes.

        I think us devs tend to underestimate the value of talking to people, growing networks, etc. As soon as we start reaching out to people, asking them what they're struggling with, asking them to try our apps, and what they liked and disliked, it becomes addictive. Then, the idea isn't just something for ourselves, it can grow into something that's more useful for others. Then there's the next hard part of asking people to pay :)

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