What was the most surprising finding after you launched on Product Hunt?
People spend a lot of time preparing for a product launch, but after every campaign, they usually look back and think, "We could have done this better."
Not because they didn't prepare, but because there were things they simply didn't know beforehand.
Common examples are:
– You should have picked a different launch day.
– You didn't get the launch timing right (for example, launching halfway through the day instead of right at the start of a new day).
– And many more.
For me personally, it was relying too much on my follower count. It didn't guarantee visibility, and in hindsight, I would have invested more time in personally reaching out to LinkedIn and Twitter friends to ask for support.
What was the most surprising lesson or realisation from your own launch?
Replies
@busmark_w_nika The biggest lesson for me is that Product Hunt is not just launch day, it’s the trust you build before launch day. A strong page helps, but if people don’t already have some context for who you are or why the product matters, the launch has to work much harder. I think the real prep is not only assets and timing, but warm conversations before the spike happens.
minimalist phone: reduce your screentime
@alpertayfurr It is more a long-term project. Before – During – After :)
Propane
The thing that caught me off guard: the traffic spike was real, but the conversations were more valuable than the conversions.
We had people comment with frustrations that perfectly described exactly what we were underbuilding. Not feature requests — actual articulation of the problem we were supposedly solving. Some of those comments rewired how we thought about the whole product.
Also: your first comment matters more than you think. We spent weeks on the page copy and about 4 minutes on that first comment. It sets the tone for everything that follows. If you're preparing for a launch, I'd write that comment like it's a cover letter.
The follower thing is real too — I made the same mistake. The platforms only care about engaged people, not followers. 50 people who actually DM you will do more than 5,000 who vaguely remember following you.
minimalist phone: reduce your screentime
@atherkildsen Interesting POV, especially that first comment. I mean, it is important but I thought that the first copy and tagline + icon more :)
NINA
I haven't launched on Product Hunt yet, but I think I will soon.
One thing that's surprised me while preparing is how much discussion there is around the launch itself. Before joining PH, I assumed a great product was the hard part and the launch was just a date on the calendar.
Now I'm realizing there's a lot more to it: timing, positioning, community engagement, personal outreach, launch assets, and even choosing the right day.
Curious to see how much of the advice only really makes sense once you've gone through a launch yourself.
minimalist phone: reduce your screentime
@varun1jan Trust me... nothing sparks attention more than Product Hunt itself... on the platform – about the platform.
I didn't understand how important people's ranking is when they upvote you. There were lots of people who upvoted my launch who are not very active on PH generally, and my launch didn't rank well as a result.
minimalist phone: reduce your screentime
@robert_douglass TBH, those upvotes should reflect the satisfaction with the product, but mostly it seems to be a parameter of marketing effort and social media popularity... which is not good.
Really appreciate these threads about launching (and pre-launching) - super helpful for me, who's new here and hasn't launched yet. I do have a date (Sept. 9 - my birthday) and have crafted a solid launch runway. Your suggestion of reaching out to supporters on other platforms (especially LinkedIn) is smart and I've seen a number of people doing that. So naturally, I've added that to my runway too!
A surprising finding for me was that some of the most valuable feedback came from people who never became customers. Their questions exposed gaps in messaging that I had completely missed
Haven't launched yet, getting knowledge
I've heard warming up accounts by having some real conversations with founders, to get to know the product hunt community and how things works here, would be great way to start
Timings and Perfect product is technical, but to understand distribution of particular channgel like Producthunt, this kind of conversations are essential
For us it was the quality of comments mattering way more than upvote count on launch day. We got a decent number of thoughtful back-and-forth threads in the comments, and those seemed to pull in more organic interest than the upvote number alone.
Also underestimated how much timing within the day matters. We launched around 8am PT thinking that was "early enough" but missed the actual 12:01am reset window. Lost a solid few hours of leaderboard visibility because of that.
@busmark_w_nika I have done my research on why I want to launch tomorrow, setup the correct time and listened to many other "past launchers" on what worked for them, and invested into more professional launch material.
Most importantly, I have moved the launch date from last summer to tomorrow, because I didn't think the product was good enough. We got accepted into the Google Start-Up program last November and beefed up our AI features and fine tuned onboarding. Only as of 2 months ago, we are seeing differentiated usage of the app and much better user retention rates. Is there one more advice that you can give me for my launch tomorrow (don't have many followers to count on haha)?
minimalist phone: reduce your screentime
@jens_thena Prepare to reach out to people in DMs, it will be a tough bottle :D Wishing you GL! :)