What not to do during your Product Hunt launch day?

Vineet Gupta
9 replies
In March, we'll be launching our SaaS product on PH, so I wanted to check with the community what things do you suggest we should avoid and not do? Stuff that doesn't work and kills time?

Replies

Kyrylo Taranenko
Hey Vineet! I have launched a product previously (#1 of the Day, #5 of the week), so I may share a thing or two. First, you need to decide what is your goal with the launch on ProductHunt because that determines what you need or don't need to do. Do you want to get feedback about your product? Do you want to get social proof? Do you want to get free promotion and sell your licenses? I know the ideal case includes every point from above, but it's better to choose one main goal. If you want to get feedback, you don't actually need to focus on bringing people from everywhere to get the upvotes. It would be enough to invite the users of your product, fellow ProductHunters, make posts in relevant forums and let people share their impressions about the product. This will be enough to get to the main page. Everything above is overkill and I believe may even affect your post negatively. Better focus on gaining insights from discussions with people who share their feedback. Pro tip: Make sure your content is clear enough, you have a good video and your Maker's post is ~ two paragraphs short, concise and clearly communicates what you want to get. There is a difference in whether you ask people to make an upvote and disappear, or to get them to try your product and learn what they think. It will impact what you gain in the result.
Kyrylo Taranenko
If you want to earn from the launch... well, there are websites better suited for it, like AppSumo. ProductHunt is certainly capable of bringing you some amount of income, but this is not its purpose. Still, if this is your goal, your product must be a strong fit for the audience and solve the problems of makers in the best way possible. Pro tip: ProductHunt launch doesn't affect your conversion metrics, it's just a bigger volume of visitors to your website. If, for example, your conversion from website visitor to paid user was 1% from relevant sources, it will remain at 1% or slightly above. So you may calculate what you may gain prior to the launch or improve your funnel before the launch day. Because ProductHunt won't fix problems that are on the side of your product and how it converts. Now, if you want to get press coverage, you better have a good story about your mission and the problem you're fighting with. If you're not Maisie Williams (check https://www.producthunt.com/post...) and don't have a compelling case of huge investment rounds, chances are you will not magically get publications and will need to manually pitch journalists. Just know that the PH launch by itself and the place you take is not noteworthy. It is 5 products every day = 150 per month! So I would say it is just a matter of how noteworthy your product is by itself and what problems does it solve. Then pitch to relevant bloggers or journalists just like you would do in a regular way, especially if it gets some recognition upon the launch. Don't expect ProductHunt to do this thing for you. I have noticed many times that the more work people put into the product and package before the launch, the more recognition they get. If you don't prepare the proper presentation and don't fix your funnel, you won't gain much, so there's that. Hope this helps! If you like this answer, please follow my upcoming page of TimeinesAI: https://www.producthunt.com/my/u... Your support would help us understand what problems people have with business communication on Whatsapp and how we may address their pain points. I would appreciate your help and would do so in return!
Ștefan Prohnițchi
Don't leave the comments on Product Hunt without an answer, and don't leave the support line on your website without someone on the watch.
Anuj Mishra
Try not to request upvotes anyplace. Feel free to ask for feedback, but asking for upvotes is a big no-no. People should upvote the product because they like it, not because they’re peer pressured into doing so.