How did you fail on Product Hunt launch?

Max Russell
15 replies
Hi everyone! I believe that we heard a lot of success stories while launching on Product Hunt. What about failure stories? Yes, there's a lot too, I believe! Why don't you share with me your experiences? And how did you get through the failure? Everyone falls. But for those who can pick themselves back up, learn from the failures, and never stop going their way toward greatness, the "failure" will turn into a "huge chance"!!!

Replies

Monil Shah
This is such an important question, thank you for posting! Although I don't think we "failed", where we fell short was failing to successfully capture the love we got from Product Hunt. If we had some sort of a slack community where we could interact with folks who came through from our PH page, it would've been useful. We learned this the hard way and will be setting up a slack community soon! Here's us btw, please feel free to give us some love :-)
Monil Shah
@themaxrussell Thank you! I'm still looking, do you have any suggestions on which community to join?
Max Russell
@monil_shah2 yeah so true. Have you joined in any slack community yet? Btw, love your work!
Max Russell
@monil_shah2 still looking for it :( if you have any communities, you can share with me anytime
Amanda Tunner
Interesting question! As "failures are the pillars of success" and once we stand up after failing, we can be stronger than ever. Product Hunt is a great platform to launch and discuss new apps but making it to the top is not easy. My harshly failed experience has come from my previous submission. I didn't build a strong community on PH first and only sent the launching link to some of my friends and forgot to ask them to upvote it. So, after only 30 minutes, the submission had been buried under a ton of other posts in the newest section. So, for this time, I focus more on building connections with other hunters from the pre-launch step and hope everything's going right 😀.
Amanda Tunner
@mia_pham thank you, I hope it's also effective for you. Btw, why don't we connect and get some feedback from each other for better app development? This is my upcoming page https://www.producthunt.com/upco..., it will soon be submitted so please stay connected.
Mia Pham
@amanda_tunner thank you for sharing this, it has really helped me. Best of luck on your launch!
Mia Pham
@amanda_tunner Everything looks great! I am excited for your launch! :)
Ruben Wolff
Our first (and now deleted) launch was made for a prototype of the product we're building now. We didn't build an audience and the prototype was far from being where it is now. We were very very unprepared, but we learnt from other people's experiences how to follow each step properly, and now we're almost ready to re-launch!
Max Russell
@rubenwolff yasss! I believe your next launch will rock!!!!
Angi Bowman
Our first hunt wasn't driven by our team. It was back in the early days of Product Hunt, so we were excited that we were hunted when we found out a few years later. At the same time, we were disappointed that we weren't able to maximize any efforts or returns. Our second hunt was an even bigger learning experience. Our limitations were our biggest pain point. We didn't have the tools, network, audience, etc. in place that allowed us to build the community we needed. The results were lackluster, to say the least. Here's to a better third! We're wiser, stronger, better and more prepared than ever.
David J. Kim
I'd say we did what we could for our launch, but afterwards we needed a better way to keep in touch with everyone interested.
Tomass
I have to be honest. We first launched the product on PH, when we even didn't know what it was. It was just on the list of alternative portals where we thought we need to be. We filled the application and it got accepted. Then we saw traffic coming from Product Hunt, we got so excited, but it stopped after two days. We all know why! :D So yes, here we are trying to get some upvotes and some new users, got the lesson about true PH potential for the next time! :)
Max Russell
@tomass_tomsevics yes, our upcoming product will be launched here too! Do you have any advices for us?
Tomass
@themaxrussell I think it's very important, as it was already mentioned by Amanda Tunner in another reply, to get those upvotes right after the launch so that you stay at the top of the page longer and get the maximum potential out of this launch.