We had the worst launch in Product Hunt history - but we went #4. Here's what happened.

Honestly launched this past Monday and we ended up Top 4 with 350+ upvotes and 40+ comments. It doesn’t feel real, because:

1. The support we received from hundreds of strangers across the internet was incredible, and we are beyond grateful for it.

2. We didn’t plan this launch. At all.

We’ve been so deep in building the product that we kept pushing our launch back again and again and again. All of a sudden, on Monday we woke up to dozens of “Congrats on the launch!” messages. In our pre-coffee, foggy brained states we were really confused as to why. But then it hit us: we forgot to change our launch date.

To make matters worse, we didn’t have any of the essentials: No hunter, no maker comment, no demo video (added in midday). There was just a placeholder of v0 materials we already iterated upon internally countless times. Our logo was even outdated, and the link to our product and website was nowhere to be found in the comments. Not one upvote or comment came from anyone we knew within the first hours of launching.

Because our day wasn’t crazy enough, the website broke, so most businesses couldn’t fill out our interest form properly, and our consumer facing Chrome extension encountered a huge bug where users couldn’t use our product after installing it.

A situation like this usually means guaranteed failure, yet to our surprise, we climbed to a Top 5 position on the leaderboard and were swarmed with PH notifications all day. Even outside of Product Hunt we were being battered with notifications.

We’re extremely thankful for the outcome, especially considering the circumstances. This is not a scenario that happens often, but it proved something vital to us:

Even with a shell of a launch, we’re making something people want.

We always believed finding real, trustworthy reviews online mattered. But this experience made it clear it’s not just important, it’s necessary. As AI-generated content continues to blur the line between real and fake, the need for verified, authentic opinions is clear. That’s the mission we’re pursuing with Honestly.

Now What? Top 5 Product of the Week🏆

Now, we aim to build off this accidental momentum by getting into the Top 5 for Product of the Week. We know it’s a very daunting task, but we try to reach for the stars like the many great PH Makers before us. Every upvote, comment, and review helps us get there. If you’ve tried Honestly, glanced at our website, or just thought we had a wild launch story, we’d love your feedback on our Product Hunt page :)

Oh and if you hit bugs, have ideas, want to connect, or just feel the need to tell us we’re crazy for forgetting our launch date, please don’t hesitate to reach out at scott@usehonestly.com.

For those who want to try the Chrome extension or see what the internet thinks about your business, check us out here: usehonestly.com