How many people should be in your "community" or on your "list" before you launch?
Nico Muoio
25 replies
Everyone says that the most important part of a PH launch is your pre-launch audience. How many people should be on your messaging/DM/Email list before you launch?
Some people say you need 50 real friends to help upvote and some say you need 1000+. What do you think?
Replies
Hélène SAN@helene_san
really interesting question... I'd say the more you have in your list, the better it's going to be for your launch :)
Perhaps more than 200 should be great
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We’re grappling with that now as we gear up to relaunch.
From our experience, you can definitely have a solid launch day without any established audience so long as you promote it well on launch day in Slack communities, Indie Hackers, etc.
Outdone had no audience to rely on and we still managed 5th place and a few hundred upvotes (a few thousand site visits).
Of course, to give yourself the best chance at the #1 spot, you’ll want an audience of 50+ (ideally 100+) that you can call on for that early engagement.
Slowly but surely building up Outdone’s audience by leaving thoughtful comments on launch posts. People tend to return the favor. (:
@jonathan_nass Oh that's helpful to know! I was under the impression what without and audience leading up to launch regardless of the product the launch would surely fail. Appreciate the anecdote.
@nicomuoio no problem! Definitely join some Slack communities like Indie Worldwide, Growth Marketing Pros, or Pigeonhack — these all have a global user base, so they’re helpful to get those super early morning hour upvotes
@jonathan_nass @nicomuoio thanks! did you have a hunter promote you during the launch?
@nicomuoio @nikolas_dimitroulakis oh wow, yes — thanks for the reminder. That totally helps. We looked through a list of top Hunters (especially Hunters that had launched a similar product) and sent out a handful of twitter DMs (5 or 6). One got back to us right away and agreed to help out.
Although I’ve read recently that having a big Hunter is no longer as impactful as it used to be.
@nikolas_dimitroulakis @jonathan_nass A hunter is essentially someone with a big following on PH that will upvote your project early on so that their followers get notified, right?
The amount of people is difficult and really depends on your product. If your product is for enterprise clients, then you need a lot less than if you were making a screenshot tool, for instance.
I would collect 20-30 people who were 100% sure to create activity on your listing, and then have a list of people you have signed up which whom you don't know if they will interact.
And then hopefully, it will roll from there.
50 real friends in the first hour would definitely be a step in the right direction. But the first hour is crucial, so I would study how many you would need to be top in that timeframe and then organic exposure should take you the rest of the way.
@oscar_wehbe First hour meaning midnight? Or can you schedule your launch at any time throughout the day?
@nicomuoio For the best chance of success, you want to be on the featured list when a new day starts which is midnight PST.
Launching soon!
It is not a thing that can be described in exact numbers. As @oscar_wehbe said, you need around 50 people to get upvotes in the first hour to get featured in the top list.
Great question, Nico. Would love to follow your product launch and support.
@nicomuoio https://producters.notion.site/p... I haven't launched any products here, but thought this would help when I do.
500-1000 for landslide victory :D