When is the right time to launch on Product Hunt?
Because building products has become much more accessible thanks to AI, the bar has had to rise a bit, or at least the expectations have become stricter.
I built my own tool – SafeLimit, but personally, I wouldn’t launch it on Product Hunt yet because it’s still very basic and doesn’t even have a website. 😀
Personally, I wouldn’t use Product Hunt only to validate an idea or a problem anymore.
I would feel ready to launch once I reached these points:
– the product works with its core features (it doesn't break)
– it has been properly tested by developers, UX/UI testers, and a few potential users (with bugs fixed)
– it has its own landing page explaining the product
– it already has a version with payments integrated
– it follows Product Hunt’s launch and community guidelines (novelty, uniqueness, etc.)
– it has a small but engaged user base that can support the launch with comments or reviews (social proof)
When would you personally feel ready to launch on Product Hunt?
What would be your minimum requirements?
Replies
My bar is simpler: I don't launch until a stranger can go from link to value without me in the loop. If every new signup needs me to hand-hold or restart something, a launch just converts attention into churn. I'm deliberately not launching mine yet for exactly that reason — small audience, and one launch day spent badly is worse than waiting until 20 people use it unprompted.
minimalist phone: reduce your screentime
@sagar_gupta36 What about my approach? I want to collect more users for free and, from a large number of free users, invite some to the paid tier. Is it bad or good?
We're kind of in a weird spot on this actually. Launched once already, early, without much of an audience, and it went basically unnoticed. Been slowly fixing things and growing a small group of people who actually use it since then, but we keep going back and forth on whether that's enough to try again.
How big does that "engaged user base" actually need to be before it counts? Is 20-30 genuinely active people enough, or is that still too small to matter on launch day?
minimalist phone: reduce your screentime
@karina32 I think that I would start somewhere at 50 people. Because when you take into account that top launches gather around 400 or 500+ upvotes daily.
This matches what I'm seeing. I'm two or three weeks out from launching and the only thing I actually trust is the handful of people I've had real conversations with
Happy to be one of yours if you want a genuine back and forth, and I'll take you up on the same when my turn comes.
minimalist phone: reduce your screentime
@gaspard_dpx Feel free to send a request on LinkedIn once you are gonna launch :)
Good list though many products could benefit ahead of waiting for pricing and payments integration. The only caution for non-engineers launching products is to spend cycles hardening security before the launch and publication as well.
minimalist phone: reduce your screentime
@mahi_sethuraman Should I launch without the paywall?