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15 Comments

What is your typical launch strategy?

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!):

  1. Post on relevant subreddits + BetaList
  2. Post on Hacker News
  3. Post on IndieHackers
  4. Launch on Product Hunt
  5. Follow up with early potential customers (i.e. those who have provided emails early on to help validate the idea)
  6. Cold Emailing potential leads
  7. (Sometimes) Experiment with ads
  1. 4

    I've never done launches. I just make stuff. Share it. Make more stuff. Share it again. 🤷🏽‍♀️

  2. 3

    Step 0: Build an email list before you launch.

  3. 2

    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.

  4. 2

    With Tabler Icons I did pretty much the same but in a different order.

    1. PH
    2. Reddit
    3. TW
    4. Different smaller relevant websites.
    5. Summary here on IH (will be published tomorrow)

    With Hacker News, my success is zero/nada.

    1. 1

      May I know what subreddit do you post on?

    2. 1

      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.

      1. 1

        Yeah, maybe karma also counts. I saw lot of posts that were posted by people with high karma and they did well.

    3. 1

      This comment was deleted 3 years ago.

  5. 1

    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

  6. 1

    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 🙂

    1. 1

      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.

  7. 1

    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.

    1. 1

      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).

      1. 2

        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 :)

      2. 2

        Thanks man, ya I feel the same. Curious to see how other fellow IH feel.

  8. 1

    Always be launching 🚀

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