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what I learned launching on Product Hunt today

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Hey! I'm Yas, solo founder of Semita — an AI travel planner that generates a full day-by-day itinerary in under 60 seconds.

A few things I learned building and launching solo:

  • Distribution is harder than building — the product took months, getting people to see it is a whole different challenge

  • User feedback surprises you — I assumed collaboration would be the most popular feature but Hidden Gems mode got way more attention than I expected. Goes to show that what you think users want and what they actually care about can be completely different

  • Plan your launch day better than I did — it is chaotic trying to make sure everything works while also getting posts out everywhere. I got so caught up checking the product that I missed the time and lost the first few hours of momentum. Lesson learned — schedule your posts in advance

  • Getting people to respond is hard — I personally emailed early signups hoping for feedback and heard nothing back. Apparently that is normal but it is still a humbling reminder that getting people to engage takes way more effort than you expect

Would love to connect with other founders — what was your biggest lesson from your own launch? 👇

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I would say building the brand. I haven't launched yet, but in recent years i've seen a landscape shift where now users and consumers like visibility and transparency of the founder(s); these days that shows credibility.

Whereas some years ago, I feel as though the founder being too visible gave a bit of an amateurish appearance.

I haven't launched yet, but i'd say building a brand and being visible.

 interesting, that’s true there has been a shift. I find it hard taking videos of my progress and editing them, do you face that issue too? Or is it something else? And all the best building your brand, that’s exciting!

 Yes, I do have that same issue. I'm generally quite a private person so it's a bit tricky. And thank you :)

I can definitely relate to the first point.

Building the product is hard, but its marketing is a completely different challenge. You can have a great product, but if people don't find it, it becomes much harder to grow.

 yeah I agree, I feel like it’s also that there’s too many social media channels to go through like twitter, Reddit, insta and etc. How do you go about it?