ProductHunt launch FAQs from my experience
Update:
Going good for now, was #1 spot for a while, right now at #3.. I will keep updating the metrics here
https://www.producthunt.com/posts/kaapi
I have had mixed results with Producthunt launches until now. My first app finished at #6 position (peaked at #2 that day); and then the second side project completely bombed with just 60 odd upvotes.. A lot of people helped me with their tips and tricks. And a lot of detailed guides already exist (which I have linked to below) so I am focusing here on a few confusing decisions I had to make -
- Which guides to read - this and this should be enough! At the end of the day, it's not really a rocket science, or something that you can growth hack to no end 😃
- Should you even launch on PH - if your buyer persona doesn't fit the kind of people who frequent PH, please stay away from it. PH is majorly product managers, entrepreneurs, and marketing people who want to keep trying out new things.
- Should you have a prominent hunter - If a prominent hunter hunts your product, it will automatically go to the featured section. Otherwise it goes to the newest section. There are a few odd cases PH team might automatically pick it from newest section and feature it (especially if it gains traction fast and is a good product. I dont think this is an algo, and is done by their curation team). It does help, but apparently its not the end of the world. My last launch that bombed was without a hunter, so this time I wanted to go with one!
- Optin vs Direct ask - As much as I could, I tried reaching out to a few supporters and communities before hand to ask them if they like our product and would they be willing to help us spread the word.
- Is it ok to directly ask for upvotes - Kinda ok, if you are not a douchebag about it! Dont spam too much. And stay away from copy pasting across FB and Slack groups. I tried my level best to drop in a personalised note for that community when I reached out to them.
- Timezones matter - After talking to a few people who had successful launches, I have tried to make sure that I do a sustained burst of messages to my network over the entire day e.g. I did Linkedin post right after going live, but waited for few hours to write an article on Linkedin about my experience.
That's all! But I guess most importantly, just have fun out there 😃I had a lot of fun connecting with old friends & network.
