Why do people launch on Product Hunt?
I created my account on Product Hunt because I saw many founders talking about it here, but I don't fully understand what they do or why it is worth submitting a product there. I could do some research, but just thought this could be a good excuse to start a conversation here, as I haven't been very active yet.
The PH posts I had a look at seem very advertise-y to me. Is there a real audience reading them or is it just founders upvoting each other?
I have a similar feeling about Hacker News.
Different launchpad sites have different audiences and products that resonate with them. Product Hunt is a big site for promotion, but many products and startups fall flat there. I recommend scrolling through the top submissions by day/week to see the trends of things that people tend to like what they ignore.
Product Hunt has a very meta crowd, meaning it populated by people who like to launch sites. That doesn't mean the traffic is fake, but that the audience tends to be very narrowly focused because everyone is trying to sell to each other. The things that do best there are either simple ideas like "roundup of landing page designs" or some SaaS products to help designers/developer/marketers.
I think if you are launching a SaaS aimed at that crowd, a good PH launch can be a huge stepping stone to getting linked up and discussed online. However, if you are launching something like a laundry folding service or a doodad that trims toenails, PH probably won't resonate. As PH has expanded they have added some general purpose tools for prelaunch and are a good place to discover things to use yourself, but might not be worth the steps required to have good launch there.
That makes sense. Thanks.
So, I've seen a few people talk about the necessary steps for a good launch, or the effort they put into preparing it. I also found this article https://medium.com/swlh/product-hunt-101-how-to-launch-your-product-from-early-idea-to-revenue-c3f01864cdde
But then the content I see on the site is just a very short post with a video or slides and a well written comment. Plus maybe some additional comments from friends or other co-founders (the ones I've seen look very staged to me, too marketing-y).
From what you guys say, preparation must really mean having the product and the team ready to welcome a bunch of new users, because you only get one shot at this.
I don't think this would be very useful for what I'm currently working on (data visualization for GoPro videos), as the niche I'm after (video editors, production companies) won't be there. I was planning on reaching them through customized emails, but there might be platforms where they meet. I've been one of them, maybe the forums I used to lurk in will come in handy.
that makes a lot of sense ... i launched on PH got no response while i had a very good response on hacker news ...
I was quite saddened to see i didnt received any response on PH but then knowing what you just revealed ... helped me not stress out .. so much about PH launch !
Thanks for this, it was something I've been wondering about too.
Product Hunt has become a necessary part of every product launch. That community is full of entrepreneurs, tech enthusiasts, tech journalists, you name it.
Product Hunt is a system that can’t be gamed, and of course not every product can win, no matter how popular.
Here are some tips I read a while ago:
I hope it helps. Good luck!
don't underestimate the fact that a lot of bloggers and news outlets will use PH and Hackernews for inspiration, there is a viral effect that creates blog posts & backlinks on secondary sites
I was on the same stage when I started to develop my first ever product colorsandfonts.com and suddenly i got to learn about ph, then when I was almost ready I
launched on ph and got number 11 of the day...
I got 1300 visitors. Since then the site has been published all around and kept from 120 to 300 users daily.
Its free though...
I have to agree with @Nuggety, PH is really good for productivity products, illustrations rock the world on PH... at least is how I see it. I watch it every day...
Hacker News is the elite or...it definitely feels like this to me.
I posted there 8 times and once , a couple of days ago...got 20 votes. That's it...
There are people reading them, but like any other platform you have to catch their attention.
I agree with Nuggety, PH forms its own vertical interest market, and a lot of products are not a good fit for it.