From "What's Product Hunt?" to #1 Product of the Day š Hi, I'm Hira, AMA!
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Two months ago, I'd never heard of Product Hunt. When I told people we were launching @AI Context Flow here, they told me to keep my expectations in check.
Fast forward to today: #1 Product of the Day and #1 Productivity Tool of the Week.
The journey was chaotic, humbling, and honestly surreal. If you'd told me this would happen, I wouldn't have believed you.
To everyone who upvoted, commented, and cheered us on: Thank you. Your support means everything and keeps us building.
If you need any tips on how we pulled this off as complete first-timers, ask your specific questions below š
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insight on how your launch was so successful and what you felt really moved the needle on launch day is always valuable. Also - curious (as I am with all really solid launches) did you see the launch success translate into an increase in rev? users? free users? paid users? site visits? etc? Curious about the metrics you experienced.
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@hira_siddiqui1Ā yea - always eager to know what those metrics look like!
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@hira_siddiqui1Ā really great! are those all paid customers?
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@derek_bramblesĀ we were doing pilots of this product for 3 weeks before product hunt. But that didn't matter as much because most of our early users didn't have product hunt accounts.
And product hunt slashes votes that are not from warmed up accounts.
I did however started reaching out to active PH users and sending them what im building and getting their opinion. Since this was a problem that almost everyone is facing these days, so it was a bit easier in that sense.
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@derek_bramblesĀ important thing to note here is that think of product hunt as a distribution mechanism. Let's say you are at a point where you want to find users for your product, then you can scour reddit groups (r/producthunters, r/softlaunch, r/SaaS etc.) and showcase your product that this is what you are going to soon launch. You will find genuine supporters and then on launch day you can go and ask them to support you.
The trick is to find some people beforehand that really like your product, and support you in the first few hours of launch. The rest is then done by the PH community.
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@hira_siddiqui1Ā give me more hope haha, thank you for the input! I'm planning on launching soon.
Congrats, Hira! Amazing result for first-timers š
What was your biggest "oh shit, we should've done this differently" moment during launch?
(Always love learning from first-timer perspectives - way more honest than the expert playbooks š)
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@hira_siddiqui1Ā š So you had TWO "oh shit" moments - the Tuesday scheduling AND the LinkedIn ban during launch!
OMG! But kudos to you!
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@hira_siddiqui1Ā š LinkedIn's automated spam detection strikes again!
Pro tip for next launch: spread messages over 24-48 hours and personalize each one. Their algorithm hates copy-paste patterns.
But hey, you got #1 anyway - worth the ban š
Did the suspension kill your launch momentum or were you already past the critical window?
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@yeva_menshikovaĀ so I did three things:
1. Asked our existing 400 users if any of them had PH accounts. Maybe 5 of them had it :P so, that was pretty much a moot point for this launch.
2. Then I joined many of early stage startup communities, subreddits, even this forum here and wrote posts about what I'm building... and asked for feedback. And that's how started building a genuine community that knew about
the product (some of them used it too). You will find many of my posts on this forum prior to launch too.
3. On the launch day, I told them to support and write whatever they think about the project. Many of them wrote their real insights as comments, which sparked genuine discussions.
The overall process took 4 weeks though. But even if it hadn't resulted in #1 spot, it would have still been worth it because the whole process was about finding users, getting feedback and rallying them for support.
@hira_siddiqui1Ā thanks a lot! that's really helpful!
congrats on #1.... we're launching on upcoming week.. any tips?
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@hira_siddiqui1Ā that's good idea. thanks :))
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@hira_siddiqui1Ā I will.
Triforce Todos
Huge congrats! First launch wins are the sweetest, well deserved!
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Congrats on your successful launch Hira. That must feel good. I'm building a SaaS chrome extension and im pretty much ready to start user testing. I realized Im going to need to ramp up to a launch and I found this site. Your posts and AMA are awesome. Thanks for the insights.
I do have a question for you:
If you were starting again with 0 users and a new app that you've extensively tested locally, what are the essential first steps in your mind?
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@savevsgamesĀ i would test it out with a few users before product hunt. Because lets say you have a chrome extension with 0 users and you launch on product hunt, even if its interesting for people, they will then go to chrome store and when they see 0 users and 0 reviews there, your churn rate will dramatically increase.
Find your first 50-100 B2C users before product hunt. Use reddit and socials for that.
Just went through your tips here in the comments and they were super helpful to read, thank you for sharing your experience. We are preparing for our own launch soon, so seeing how you approached it and what actually worked makes a big difference. Really appreciate the transparency.
You mentioned connecting with active Product Hunt members before your launch. How did you approach that and where did you reach out?
minimalist phone: creating folders
Congrats to your 1st place āĀ good milestone to show :)
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@busmark_w_nikaĀ thank you! and thank you for your support on the launch too :)
minimalist phone: creating folders
@hira_siddiqui1Ā You are welcome :)
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@john_lunsford_phdĀ your one liner, description, graphics... these are your first impression... everything else comes after. We spent significant amount of time nailing these down.