I'm planning a launch but I'm more curious about what happens after the launch day ends. Everyone talks about the first 2 hours, the upvotes, the maker comment. Nobody talks about day 2, day 3, day 7. Does traffic keep coming do signups convert or does it all drop to zero?
My suspicion is that most launches are a one day spike and the real work starts after but I don't have the data to prove it.
So for those who've launched: did your Product Hunt launch contribute anything to growth after the first 48 hours? And the harder follow-up: if you launched again what would you do differently for the week after launch day not the day itself?
Everyone keeps saying AI finally levels the field for small teams and solo founders. I m not so sure. The tools help, but there s only so much one or two people can do in a day, especially when you re also handling all the parts that aren t building. Bigger teams still out-post, out-ship, and out-distribute you. AI gave everyone the same boost, so I don t think the gap actually closed.
For other small teams: has AI really made it easier to keep up, or does it still feel the same?
I spend a lot of time on the investor side of the table, and the thing that surprises me most isn't bad decks. It's good founders following bad advice with total confidence. Someone they trust told them to do it, so they don't question it. Then they watch a raise stall and never connect it back to the "tip."
A few I run into constantly, and what I think actually works instead:
I have a confession. I'm a Petroleum Engineering major who's in love with marketing. Sometimes, I think I'm too in over my head. I started doing "marketing" with social media management as my first foray into anything remotely associated with digital marketing (show of hands if you started the popular way). And then, I think I lost a bit of love for social media marketing, and moved on quickly to something shiny email marketing. This was heaven while it lasted. I sold personal financial management courses and eBooks for a popular consultant here in my country. The conversations in the inboxes were so direct and personal that it always felt like I was looking directly at, and talking to the person's soul. I also tried my hands on SEO and content strategy. Doesn't it just feel amazing how you pick up so many useful micro-skills for digital marketing? That's always so intriguing. Now, I do product marketing, thanks to charting newer territories. I find it intriguing how numerous teams work together to solve a problem. Be that small-scale, or global. And meeting a lot of amazing makers and marketers here launching really helpful products here daily (some of which have been time-savers for me) reinforced my reason why I want to identify with this industry. I read a book recently by Gabriel Weinberg and Justin Mares called, "Traction." Recommended by a senior colleague in marketing. The ideas in the book just made so much sense and held so many insights for me. And it made me understand one thing, "whatever you want to get better at, reading books help you navigate there faster." As a marketer, what book(s) gave you your best "aha!" moment?
I remember reading an essay by @rrhoover about how he moved from his native Oregon to San Francisco after university studies, where doors full of networking opportunities opened up for him.
I saw the same thing in my country after graduation. About 80% of my classmates went to the capital, where there are the most opportunities in marketing and tech. (Or they went abroad.)
