I think it would be awesome to hear how different IndieHacker's approach a product launch (After validation, etc). I'll start with my typical strategy (would love any feedback!):
- Post on relevant subreddits + BetaList
- Post on Hacker News
- Post on IndieHackers
- Launch on Product Hunt
- Follow up with early potential customers (i.e. those who have provided emails early on to help validate the idea)
- Cold Emailing potential leads
- (Sometimes) Experiment with ads
I've never done launches. I just make stuff. Share it. Make more stuff. Share it again. 🤷🏽♀️
Step 0: Build an email list before you launch.
If you're able to, it makes a huge difference to get team members to upvote/comment on your posts. It can give them a little boost – I think people are a lot more likely to click on something that has 5-10 likes/comments versus something with 1-2.
With Tabler Icons I did pretty much the same but in a different order.
With Hacker News, my success is zero/nada.
May I know what subreddit do you post on?
I'd agree about Hacker News, I don't think I've ever really had much come from it either. I suppose it's a combination of perfect timing and having a product that HN tends to gravitate towards (seems to be very tech-focused products typically) in order to truly be successful there.
Yeah, maybe karma also counts. I saw lot of posts that were posted by people with high karma and they did well.
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I lean into the idea of always in "launch-mode" -> launch new product, new feature, new blog, new newsletter etc
I applied most of the items you covered above except point 6) - I'd only do cold outreach if I'm clear with the value proposition and understand the need of potential customers.
Apart from that, I often launch and interact with people from a specific community i.e. on Slack, sometimes Facebook channel.
I recently launched a little project, also in launch mode :) Keen to hear your feedback @rfizzy
I’d say you’re already doing fine. In general my advice would be to focus less on launches and more on building a sustainable marketing strategy 🙂
That's a good idea, I think I tend to mindlessly just "launch" when I would probably get some better results with a consistent strategy.
Curious, is just a landing page with coming soon and email signup a good way to launch on PH? I'm currently waiting to have at least one small feature to launch there.
I think it depends on the platform, places like HN, IH, and BetaList you'd probably be fine (and it's almost encouraged to a degree), but I think normally PH is better to keep your launch until you have at least a MVP to take advantage of that traffic (but I could be wrong here haha).
IMHO early launches on PH and other high profile websites only work if you either have the best landing page ever, a non-plus-ultra profile idea or you're a well-known hacker already. Otherwise, wait till you have a usable product ready :)
Thanks man, ya I feel the same. Curious to see how other fellow IH feel.
Always be launching 🚀