How We Launched on ProductHunt Twice: Insights and Lessons
Many people have launched various projects on Product Hunt, but few have launched the same project twice. Sit back, and I’ll share some indie project horror stories…
A little introduction: For those unfamiliar, Product Hunt is the most well-known (since 2013) and largest platform for launching various projects. Nowadays, even openAI and Nvidia launch there, or someone mimics them quite well…
Launch
After two years of developing ASO.dev, we decided it was time to stop postponing marketing efforts.
Since I’ve been studying startup materials for over 10 years, we didn’t dive deeply into launch guides (maybe a mistake) and proceeded with the understanding that we were aiming for an SEO link and maybe some traffic.
We prepared materials and postponed the launch for two months, mainly improving the product and onboarding. We received connection requests on LinkedIn, voted for other projects, and, knowing that 700–800 votes were unattainable for us, decided not to compete for the top spots. We recorded a video (finished it right on the co-founder’s birthday) and scheduled our launch for the company’s two-year anniversary. I’d share a link, but… Product Hunt deleted everything (oops, spoiler).
We emailed our client base, shared the link in channels, and asked other company founders to vote for us (sweet revenge for all the upvotes we’d given). The launch was on a Wednesday, and we got 69 votes… Let me explain in detail why this was a failure, and it wasn’t because of the vote count—we made it into the day’s top 10 projects.
We went through the entire Product Hunt launch process, but even the day after voting ended, we could only be found via a direct link.
Mentioning the product using
!Appearing in search by product name
Leaving a review for our project
Adding it as an alternative to another project
Listing the company or product usage in your profile
None of this worked…
Over two days, we tried to resolve these issues with support.
On the first day—the launch day—responses were infrequent, mostly directing us to guides. It was clear they couldn’t fix their technical problems.
Second Launch
We asked support if a second launch could solve the issue, and by Friday, they deleted EVERYTHING: all progress, the product, the company, and even the links.
They replaced all links with new ones, and we redid everything in two days, scheduling a launch for Monday, November 25, 2024. For the second launch, we were “Featured” again, asked everyone to vote, and got even more upvotes, making it into the top 10 by the time of the newsletter.
The “Product Hunt Daily” newsletter goes out at 15–20 UTC and includes the top 10 “Featured” products.
You can track voting, for example, here—it clearly shows vote deductions and spikes. It displays not only “Featured” projects, but we’re absent there—too few votes.
Takeaways:
From the first launch, we gained experience and valuable lessons:
DO NOT ask support to change links to more readable or pretty ones! (They can break everything.)
Editing the launch title or product name may change the link (also applies to already published projects).
If your project isn’t “Featured,” the launch is almost useless. Nowadays, “Featured” status is crucial—even if you have thousands of votes, without “Featured,” you won’t get a badge or make it into the newsletter! “Featured” projects gather slightly more upvotes (personal experience 😂). I don’t know if this is a new or old rule, BUT without “Featured,” it’s mostly pointless! Whether a project is “Featured” can be determined about a day before the launch—it says “Featured on” or “Posted on” at the bottom.
Achieving “Featured” status AFTER launch is possible, but it’s difficult and time-consuming.
Their mobile app is weird, showing only “Featured” projects and usually limiting the number to 10 (+2 ads).
Some links are intercepted by the mobile app but don’t open…
Comment notifications are only sent to the project’s hunter; makers receive no notifications.
Bonus Knowledge:
You’ll receive lots of spam across all social media and email offering to support your product with bots, ranging from 50 to 700 votes for varying sums of money, or posts about you in groups with hundreds or millions of bots people 🙈. You’ll also hear from interesting people launching their projects (we understand them much better now ♡), as well as some sneaky ones claiming they supported you with their 100–500-person team on launch day, which often isn’t true. Check users’ votes if you agree on mutual support, and verify they haven’t withdrawn their votes afterward (examples exist).
We received almost NO organic traffic. We talked to founders of other projects that secured 1st and 2nd places—they also didn’t get significant user inflow. For 700–900 votes, they had about 100–180 registrations, with many bringing their audience…
From the video views, it’s clear almost no one watched it, despite TWO launches. From my observations, having a video is almost 100% mandatory to be “Featured.” Changing the product category is still buggy—we can’t change it again, and for some reason, ASO.dev is now labeled as the best SEO-tool.
So far, we’ve had ONE purchase with a 25% discount promo code from the launch. Our launch from November 25 ranked 11th by the end of the day.
SEO performance updates will follow.
P.S.: If you need to work with App Store Connect or organic growth (like SEO but for iOS), try our product ASO.dev 👍