I launched today with 2 followers. Posting the real number.
Our launch went live at 12:01 PT today. As I write this it is in single digits, nowhere near the featured cutoff. I would rather post the number than a vague "lots of learnings" thread, so here it is, plus what I actually think went wrong and what I am doing about it in the open.
What was ready: product worked, landing page up, payments live, guidelines followed, assets done. Every readiness item on a standard launch checklist was ticked.
What was not ready: I had 2 followers. Not 2 short of enough. 2 in total.
I had been treating "build an audience" as one more checklist item, something you do a bit of and then tick off. It is not that kind of item. Every other thing on the list is work you can finish in a sprint. This one has a lead time measured in weeks, because a follower is fundamentally a person who receives a notification, and you cannot notify people you met an hour ago.
The sentence I keep chewing on: the first six items decide whether a launch deserves to do well. The seventh decides whether it does. I was reading them as one list.
Where I think the standard advice falls short: "build an audience first" is true and useless, because it does not say what an audience is made of. From today, I think it is two specific things, and neither of them is upvotes. One, people who have had an actual back-and-forth with you. Not people who follow you quietly. People who argued with you in a thread. Two, a place that exists before launch day for those people to be notified from. I had neither. I had a product.
What I am doing for the next four weeks, in public. Second product, same company, launching Aug 25. Whatever I do between now and then I will report back here with numbers, including the parts that do not work.
The upcoming page went up today, four weeks out, so it can accumulate followers instead of me trying to find people on launch morning. Three sessions a day in these forums, not posting about my product, answering things I actually know something about, which for me is credit economies, model routing, and the ways AI products fail quietly. No DMs asking for support, because I do not want the kind of number that produces. And I will post follower count and KP in this thread every week, including the flat weeks.
What I want from people who have done this more than once: what actually moved between your first launch and your best one? I am deliberately not asking about the product. I mean the distribution side. Was it followers, a mailing list, one person who hunted you, months in the right forum, something I have not thought of at all?
And if you also launched today, drop your link and I will go read it properly and leave a real comment. Not a trade, I just find the launches in the bottom half of the day more interesting than the top.
Replies
The bit that took me longest to find is buried in PH's own notification settings: commenting in the forums auto-follows the product and the author of that thread. So followers are mostly downstream of people commenting on threads you wrote, not of you following anyone.
Which slightly reframes your plan. Three sessions a day answering in other people's threads is how you meet people and it's the right instinct, but the follower number specifically moves when somebody comments on something you authored. Both matter, they just do different jobs.
Related, I tested follow-for-follow-back deliberately for about a week. Reciprocation was close to zero, so I wouldn't spend the time there.
Mine goes live Sunday and I'm in roughly the position you're describing, so I'll find out shortly whether any of that holds up. Happy to come back with numbers either way, including if it flops.
@venkat_a2 I had that backwards, thanks. I've been treating three sessions a day of replying as follower work when it's really just meeting people, and the number only moves off threads I wrote myself. So the ratio is wrong: I'm writing one thread a day and leaving maybe twenty replies. Matches what I see, my two threads have pulled more follows between them than every reply I've left combined. Drop your link Sunday and I'll read it properly, and I'd like to know your follower count the night before versus the morning of.
Venkat's StoryVoice went live today so I went and read it properly. Comment is over there rather than a polite one here. Still want the two numbers when you have them, follower count the night before versus the morning of, because that's the datapoint this whole thread is actually missing. Weekly count and KP goes up tomorrow as usual.
Week 1 numbers, as promised. Followers 2 to 48. KP 144 all time, 39 of that this month. 20 day streak.
The number that matters and looks bad: the Arteza upcoming page has 1 follower. It went up six days ago specifically so it could accumulate followers before Aug 25, and it has done nothing. Either an upcoming page is invisible unless you already know the product exists, or nobody follows one without a reason, and I don't yet know which.
Venkat was right about where follows come from. Almost all 46 came off the two threads I wrote, close to none off the twenty-odd replies I leave every day. I'm not changing that ratio yet, because the replies are where I actually meet people, but I've stopped pretending they're the same job.
Next Monday, same three numbers, plus how many of the 48 trace back to one single thread. I suspect it's lopsided and that the honest version of this advice is write one thread that lands, not three a day that don't.
Week 2 numbers.
Followers 48 to 56. KP 144 to 203 all time. Arteza upcoming page still 1 follower, same as last Monday, so that's two weeks sat at one and the one is me.
Streak broke. Profile says 4 days, it said 20 last week. I missed a day and didn't notice.
I said I'd break down how many of the 48 trace back to a single thread. I can't. Product Hunt doesn't show where a follow came from, so any split I posted would be me guessing. If anyone knows a way to see it, tell me.
What I can compare: week 1 was 2 to 48 off two threads that landed. Week 2 was steadier posting and 8 follows. Same hours, a sixth of the result, which points at the threads rather than the volume. Fifteen days to Aug 25 and the upcoming page still hasn't moved.
Week 4 numbers. I also missed week 3 entirely, which is its own datapoint about how well this holds up when the week gets busy.
Followers 56 to 59. KP 203 to 212 all time, 39 of that this month. So three follows in a fortnight. Week 1 was 46 off two threads that landed. Everything since has been steady posting for single digits, which says the gap between a thread people argue with and one they scroll past is larger than every other lever I have put together.
The Arteza upcoming page is still on 1 follower. It went up four weeks ago today for exactly this purpose and it has gathered nobody but me. Four weeks, one follower, and the one is still me. Whatever an upcoming page is for, it is not that.
We go live at 12:01 PT tonight. Started this thread at 2 followers, launching at 59. That is 57 more people than I had, and still not a number that moves anything on its own, so tomorrow is mostly a test of whether 57 people who have actually talked to you beats 2 who haven't.
Numbers again next Monday either way.
Launch numbers, since that's what this thread is for.
Arteza went live and it's sitting on 3 points. Not 3 short of the cutoff. 3.
Followers 59 to 89 since the week 4 post. KP 212 to 310 all time, 39 of that this month. The Arteza page is on 8 followers, up from the 1 that was me for four straight weeks, and every one of those 7 arrived at the very end rather than during the run-up it was built for.
So the upcoming page did nothing, and the only lever that has ever moved my follower number is still the same one from week 1: threads people argue with. Four weeks of steady replying got 30 follows. Two threads in week 1 got 46.
If I ran it again I'd spend those four weeks writing four threads worth reading instead of watching a page sit on one follower.
Has anyone actually seen an upcoming page do something? I'd like one counterexample before I write it off completely.
Monday numbers.
Followers 89 to 131. KP 310 to 378 all time, 39 of that this month. Arteza is on 4 points and 10 followers, up from 3 and 8 last Tuesday.
42 follows in five days, the best week since week 1, and it happened after launch day rather than on it. The launch itself did close to nothing. What moved was people arguing with me in comments in the days after, once I had stopped having anything to ask for.
Six weeks in and the answer hasn't changed, I've just tested the alternatives properly enough to stop wondering. Upcoming page, nothing. Twenty replies a day, single digits. Threads people disagree with, everything.
One thing I can't report. My streak count has vanished off my profile. The badges say I hit 10 days but there's no live counter anywhere I can find. Anyone know where it went?
Monday numbers.
Followers 131 to 167. KP 378 to 469 all time. Arteza still on 10 followers, same as last Monday, so a flat week on the product page.
36 follows in a week, and the launch is nine days back now and contributing nothing. What produced them was two long back and forths in other people's threads, one about scheduled agents and one about credit pricing, where somebody pushed back and we went four or five turns each. Not the first comment. The fourth.
So it's the week 1 finding one level down. A thread people argue with beats twenty replies, and inside a thread the fourth turn beats the first. Both say the same thing, that nobody follows you for having an opinion, they follow you after you've been wrong in front of them and stayed in the conversation.
Still no working streak counter anywhere on my profile. Badges say 10 days, the live number is gone, and nobody has been able to tell me where it went.