... before my last two launches I wasted weeks building before checking who else was in the space. don t be me. here s the 30-min competitor check I do now, all free tools: 1. search PH archives (5 min) search your keywords on Product Hunt. sort by launch date. note how the top 5 positioned themselves the gaps in their taglines are your opening. 2. check who s actually alive (10 min) a launch from 2023 means nothing ... ... signals: are they hiring? shipped anything in the last 6 months? active changelog? I use exploreyc.com for this (free db of 8,600+ YC / a16z / PH startups with hiring status) but LinkedIn works too. 3. read the comments on competitor

... imagine you're thinking about a backend to enable storage and collaboration features down the line? Comment from Ryan Hendrickson(@ryan_hendrickson): @maria_vannicola  Nice! Was there something that brought you to use Firebase over other alternatives? I agree with your decision to focus on building the network first, which will make it easier to open doors to monetization later. Comment from Ryan Hendrickson(@ryan_hendrickson): @matthew_kenchington  Nice! Do you provide some of your previous writing samples ... ... reddit communities, identifying creator pain points, and driving waitlist signups. it independently found threads, crafted responses, and had genuine conversations. 30+ people personally thanked it and it drove 300+ DMs from creators. wrote about the experiment on linkedin and HN

... Thank you for letting me know. I am preparing for one launch (marketing strategy), and Hacker News is also on my list, but searching for similar platforms that can "make PR"  This is how I see the HN. Comment from Chilarai M(@chilarai): @busmark_w_nika  makes sense Comment from Chilarai M(@chilarai): @busmark_w_nika  Oh! You have such a big following on PH and LinkedIn. With such a huge fanbase, why do you need ...

... next. Hashnode Posted 3 blogs. Total views: under 20. I'm starting to doubt if the platform is used by anyone - outside people that's posting like me. Hacker News I ve tried posting some of the content on HN. Got one post passed through and had some traffic to the website. Obviously, I'm still figuring out what actually works. How are you building community or getting your content noticed? Any insights, experiments, or surprises worth sharing ...

... great. But we learned, refined our positioning, simplified our product, and our Product Hunt launch went viral / led to a outsized seed from a16z. Launching sooner than we wanted was life-changing advice. Launch on Product Hunt. Launch on HN. Keep launching and iterating. Don t stress too much about the ranking. Even if you don t get #1, the feedback and engagement from launch will teach you a ton. Comment from Tasos V(@cryptosymposium): @busmark_w_nika oh from ...