Why launching MagicPattern was a lifetime experience

Story

For weeks, I was struggling with the fear of whether MagicPattern solves a real problem or is another nice-to-have app.

The app was functional, beautiful and the early users were ecstatic about the UI. But no one had told me that the product is solving a real pain for them.

That was the point when I decide that launching on ProductHunt was the only way to face my fears and answer my fundamental questions.

Will people use the app? Will anyone pay for a product like that?

Set a goal

I believe that we must always set a goal in our life. In that way, we prepare ourselves subconsciously (or not) to define a proper strategy toward that goal.

This is even more important in entrepreneurship because a wrong decision will not only cost you money but time and effort as well!

That’s why I set a milestone for MagicPattern on Monday!!!

If I had zero sales on the launch day, I'll move forward to another project.

Radical decision but that's how indie hacking works. No money, no party!

Preparations

It took me 2 days to prepare the marketing material (promo images, landing page content/design, bug fixing). Everything was set up on Wednesday morning and I had to just press a button!

You always pause before a huge action like that. It's all in or nothing!

But in the end, facing your fears and getting out of your comfort zone is the only way to evolve yourself.

And by evolving yourself, you evolve your business as well!

And, we are live..

The first 2 hours is like a war and you have to be prepared to survive.

Your ultimate goal is to end up on the front page as early as possible. In that way, you supercharge your visibility and your chances to be discovered.

Don’t buy upvotes. It’s bullshit. And anyone (including the ProductHunt team) can immediately figure out who does that! You’ll end up banned or with a penalty.

I was in the 1st position for many hours even though I had fewer upvotes. Why? Because all of my traffic was organic without artificial tricks.

If you’re here for the ProductHunt launch tips, I have 3 main takeaways.

1. Never buy upvotes or anything like that b*llshits. It’s the biggest mistake since you may actually feel successful.
2. Launch as early as possible and try to be on the front page as soon as possible. Invite friends to support or cross-post your launch on Twitter, Reddit, and HN (never tried it yet).
3. Share before asking! Never ask for upvotes because it never works. To make it work, share/bring value to people and let them decide on whether they'll support you on not. For me, setting up a Twitter giveaway for a lifetime deal worked like a charm.

🎉 I finally did it

It was 13:00 AM (GMT+3) when the email landed in my inbox. Once I saw the sender, I knew!

It was my first ever indie sale! The best feeling in the world and one that I will never forget. I had just sold the 1st lifetime deal for MagicPattern.

In the next hour, the 2nd and 3rd emails came! The experiment was over! I validated that MagicPattern worthed the effort!

Post-launch stats

I share the stats from my launch since today (~5 days) to inspire other makers like me who fear to launch their apps.

📊 7.9k visitors
🙍🏽‍♀️ 2.5k users
🦜 150 Twitter followers
💰 $800 revenue

Of course, I still have a ton of things to do! At least now, I have a signal that I'm moving in the right direction!

You cannot predict your success or failure. You have to launch and iterate your product based on your customer needs. That’s the only way to build a good product!