Is launching on PH worth it? The longer term considerations.

Yehoshua Zlotogorski
27 replies
We launched Alpe Audio a few months ago on Product Hunt and were #1 product of the day. But was it worth it? We put 70+ hours of work into our launch, and now a few months wanted to share learnings that weren't apparent in the beginning. Right after our launch I summarized results in this blog post: https://www.alpeaudio.com/post/i... But now we're 5 months later and discovered more surprising benefits that aren't discussed anywhere: The compounding benefits to PH launches. The TL:DR of the above post was that after our first launch we hit: • 10,000+ eyeballs across website + social. • 300 app downloads • 20 new subscribers But it's the future benefits that have been pretty remarkable & surprising: future launches are much better. I initially thought of our Product Hunt launch as a ‘one and done’ type of event. But that was dead wrong! In reality we have many products, and launching them is a great way to achieve distribution and early validation. = many launches Since our first launch, we've launched 2 new products. Most recently our Article to audio conversion kit - which was 🥈product of the day! (https://www.producthunt.com/post...) The best part? We only worked for 2.5 hours on this launch. Not the 70+ we'd originally put in for the 1st one. So we put in 2.5 hours of effort vs 70 for almost the same amount of results. But how? This is the benefit of compounding launches. In our first launch we struggled from three main problems: 1. Small community 2. No 'Product hunt' team 3. Lots of homework pre launch 1. Small community: Our friends weren't active on PH, so their upvotes were penalized because they were new/non active accounts. That's no longer the case. Now when they voted, their votes counted - which was huge. 2. No 'Product hunt' team We didn't have a lot of active product hunters in our circle. The first launch helped us get in touch with many. Overtime we cultivated those relationships on/off PH, on Twitter & Slack/Discord. For the next launches we had a team to help. 3. Lots of Homework! There's lots of reading to do the first time around: how to launch, joining FB groups etc - all of that work is already done the 2nd & 3rd time around. So much easier launches that are as good. To wrap up: while the short term benefits of launching on Product Hunt were good, the long term compounding benefits have really blown me away.

Replies

Xiao Lu
Much appreciate sharing, found some great datapoints. Long time reader of PH and recently made an account in preparation for launch. Many dimensions of the first launch are more or less a mystery right now and your blog provides some good prep material. Thanks!
Yehoshua Zlotogorski
@xiao_lu Great, glad to hear it! Good luck on your launch :-)
Hussain Effendi
It's funny that I came across this discussion right when I was thinking about how PH would be helpful to launch a product. Thanks for sharing your experience, now I know that I was on the right track!
Thanks for sharing - I think the value of Product Hunt does compound over time especially if you launch products regularly. The problem is that a lot of people don't get that opportunity too!
Yehoshua Zlotogorski
@maxwellcdavis True. Have to stick around in the game for long enough!
Lior Galante Cohen (Vaza)
Interesting discussion, thanks for sharing! We've actually launched TODAY https://www.producthunt.com/post..., and are hoping for many sign-ups and hence an opportunity to learn from new users :)
Rachel Levitz
What great insight! We just launched Amy today (check it out here - https://www.producthunt.com/post...). We also considered these topics in advance. I'm really looking forward to digging into all of these questions once we're done.
Yehoshua Zlotogorski
@rachel_levitz look forward to reading the post mortem on how the launch went :)
Atul Ghorpade
This is really amazing. Keep launching. You knew the ALGORITHM now! :)
Priya E. Abraham
Great insights, Yehoshua! Highly valuable for our future launch on PH. Many thanks for sharing.
Yehoshua Zlotogorski
@cyberconnecting Thanks Priya! Best of luck with the future launch :)
Priya E. Abraham
@yehoshua_zlotogorski Many thanks! We shall keep you posted :)
Jerrin Joy
Thanks for this. Very helpful! We plan to launch 2 products on PH. Is there a mandatory time gap between product launches?
Yehoshua Zlotogorski
@jerrin_joy1 5-6 months between similar looking products/products of the same company
Bertha Kgokong
Thanks for sharing this is useful information.
Ste
Good to see this put to work! Thanks for sharing the process & tips.
Connor Jewiss
Really interesting to read. The compounding launches point was something I had speculated might be a benefit, happy to see that in the real world!
Yehoshua Zlotogorski
@connorjewiss thanks Connor! I’d never thought about it prior to our first launch and only seriously saw it play out afterwards
Zoe Tan
Thanks for sharing your experience. My team is actually gearing up for our first Product Hunt launch, so we've been doing a lot of homework to prepare. Congrats on your multiple successful launches! Hoping LinkGraph could be as successful on our launch day.
Yehoshua Zlotogorski
@zoe_tan thanks Zoe and best of luck on your launch. :-)
saif khan
We plan to launch a couple of products on PH, this will really help, Appreciated!
Yehoshua Zlotogorski
@hedgefib Awesome! Good luck on the launch and feel free to reach out with questions