When do you know you're ready for PH launch?
Sneha Saigal
19 replies
What do you think? Aim for the top 5 and work for months or do a dry run and see where you land with the current preparation?
Replies
Oscar Wehbe@oscar_wehbe
Give yourself 1 or 2 months for preparation and aim for top 5 in my opinion. If you don't think you'll achieve those rankings you probably won't get the lift in users/traffic that you desire.
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@oscar_wehbe true, Oscar! I have been passively preparing for a while now but I think I need to set a date and go for it now.
when your product is ready to be used, whether beta or completed. Some existing users also helps for support, but that's what a launch is for- to gain exposure.
@sneha_saigal Well with the progress we're making, it could be as early as end of October or November
When you have a community that supports your launch, your product is ready for use, and you have a plan on how to approach potential supporters during a launch.
I would recommend following these tips from other founders who succeeded before: https://www.startupdock.net/prod...
@jakub_piskor Thanks so much for sharing this, Jakub. Community is key - wondering if you had a community across channels to rely on?
When you have a strong audience and believe at least 100+ members will upvote your product on launch day...
But even more importantly, if you are somewhat sure of your product direction.
@dhruv_bhatia Thanks, Dhruv. That is a bit tricky in terms of product direction, I would hope the launch would help validate some of that. But definitely worth it to have that direction + community for a successful launch.
You are getting some great tips from other comments. I would also add, don't fully commit only to one stream of early supporters.
Have some prospecting as well, and reach other communities that are potentially interested in trying out and being active in your product.
At the end of the day, the goal is to get people on your platform. The more, the better. Don't put all your strategy into one basket! PH is one of them.
@sneha_saigal That's great! I haven't launched yet, working on the MVP. You can visit my upcoming page dghfrance.com but it's still in progress.
Launching soon!
Once you know that your product is ready and you have enough community members to support you.
Hey Sneha, what are your expectations from the PH launch?
Some of the common ones I'm aware of:
- increase sign-ups
- increase web traffic
- get feedback for a new product/service
- find early adopters/validate your idea
- raise awareness
Based on your expectations, your preparation might differ.
If your goal is to increase sign-ups or find new users for your existing customer base, it's best to launch when you have an intuitive onboarding. I've signed up for a few apps and could never move beyond a few steps because of the complicated sign-up/onboarding process. Now that's about your product/app.
Pro tip: Launch on PH when you've given enough to the community to get their generous support.
I hope this helps!
@richa_sharma07 thanks a lot, Richa. These are really helpful tips and for sure I think the idea for a first time launch is to raise awareness and find early adopters. So yes, sign ups would be a good metric for that.
I completely agree that the onboarding process should be seamless to make the most of the launch and traction.
I'm going to go slightly against the grain here. Far more important than having a pre-existing community is ensuring that your product is actually ready. When your users are giving you great feedback, they're reaching their aha moments reliably and they're self-initiating their own success because they see the value of your product, then you're ready to launch here or anywhere. At the end of the day, PH is a quick hit top of funnel traffic injection... if you don't have the product market fit to make your users see the value of your product, then you may win the day, but your users will fall victim to churn.
@akoratana This is such a valid point, Animesh. Thanks for sharing! Product market fit is a long process and it is very challenging to find a narrow niche audience + ICP but the only way is to iterate with different cohorts and take it from there.