- Published on
✍️ How first-time founders reached #2 Product of the Day on Product Hunt - Part 3: Day of Launch
- Authors
- Name
- MyFocusSpace Team
- @MyFocusSpace1
Launch Day
Launch day is the day of execution. We found this to be the easiest and simplest approach because every minute matters within those 24 hours. To be honest, I really loved Ali's approach of splitting the launching day within 3 boosts, so I used his template and adapted it accordingly to our plan. You can get his template - here.
Source: Ali's Rashidy templates at notionstartups.com
MyFocusSpace launching plan
First boost
The most important thing is to make sure that you get enough upvotes in the first hours to reach first place in the best case.
*Source: MyFocusSpace Launch Day - Forecasts powered by Akkio*
Here's what happened during our launching day. What is striking is that Burner Page got an outstanding initial boost and held its position throughout the entire day. That's why it is so important to mobilize your community and supporters, especially for the first hours. Make sure that there are not hundreds at once. The Product Hunt algorithm detects when you try to game the system, so don't try to trick it.
What does the first hours mean?
I am going to quote Michel Sieb, the Growth Hacker for Type Studio, here.
"Since the Product Hunt servers are located in the PST time zone (GMT-8), a new day starts exactly at 12:00 am PST. So your product should go live right at the beginning of the day to take the whole 24h with you and get to the top as fast as possible. For security reasons, you should schedule the submission for 12:01 am so that no mistakes happen with the conversion of the servers to a new day."
Ask for Feedback and Keep an Eye on the Comments
Tip: Comments are also a ranking factor, so make sure that by this point you are connected with people with valuable accounts (people who have a lot of karma points), as their feedback and comments are more valuable than those of new members.
Spread the word about your launch
Add the Badge on your website
If you hit the front page and you are one of the top 5 product you will be able to change this badge with the new one. In our case, we changed it with "#2 Product of the Day" Badge.
Second boost
Source: The first email sent to MyFocusSpace early subscribers
- Share your progress on social media, with a strong reason to support you.
- Share a valuable insight about your launch, traffic gained, new customers won, anything that can be valuable or worth being celebrated.
- Retweet/share PH tweet about your product if they tweeted/posted about it
Third boost
- Share your progress one more time, this time focus on your goal (being #1 of the day).
- Check for any unanswered comments on your launch.
Product Hunt Newsletter
"Product Hunt has a newsletter that reaches an extremely large audience. There are two different newsletters. One that is sent every weekday and one that summarizes the weekend. If you make it into the top 10 of the day, you are in the newsletter the next day and can look forward to some more upvotes because many prefer to read the newsletter than to search daily on Product Hunt for cool products." Michael Sieb says in his article.
Indeed we've got +120 upvotes after the launch. You can find the newsletter - here.
Conclusion/Learnings
Lately, I have been asked by different entrepreneurs if I have any advice about launching on Product Hunt, so I decided to dedicare this conclusion to them and sum up my learning and my recommendations.
- Be truthful interested in connecting with people, you have no idea how supportive we are to each other, when we care.
- Launching on PH is a ride, so be open to spend a few months preparing for it. On the other side of the coin, remember "If You're Not a Bit Embarrassed By The First Version Of Your Product, You’ve Launched Too Late", so don't be a perfectionist.
- First hours are deadly important, so make sure you get a lot of qualitative traffic during those hours, but don't try to faint the Product Hunt algorithm.
- DM approach worked the best for us, but don't spam people. Spread the word about your product in the communities you engaged before the launch. This will help you with at least higher conversion rate.
- Take advantage of all 24h of launch. Even if this means you won't sleep that night, so what? The reward of seeing your product in the top of the products of the day is worth the effort.
- And finally, keep being active on PH, upvote, comment, and discuss. Increasing your audience will help you in the future. Don't forget this is not a sprint, it's marathon.
If you have any questions or suggestions, I'd be happy to talk to you about Product Hunt, your launch, or anything else I've mentioned here. Just feel free to send me an email: vio@myfocusspace.com
I wish you a happy launch day!😻
Cheers,
Vio
End Note
Other articles related to MyFocusSpace Product Hunt Launch
✍️ How first-time founders reached #2 Product of the Day on Product Hunt - Part 1: Planning
✍️ How first-time founders reached #2 Product of the Day on Product Hunt - Part 2: Preparation
Read good articles - Resources
- Article by Michael Sieb - https://typestudio.co/blog/product-hunt-learnings/
- Article by Gene Maryushenko - https://www.indiehackers.com/post/6-116-from-my-product-launch-no-audience-here-is-how-full-breakdown-8a00ba7992
- Ali Rashidy - https://www.notionstartup.com/
- Alex Circei - https://hackernoon.com/how-to-get-in-top-5-products-on-product-hunt-and-get-in-their-newsletter-2a2ac20e471f
- Product Hunt - https://blog.producthunt.com/how-to-launch-on-product-hunt-7c1843e06399