Product Hunt Launch Guide: Fails, Wins & 2nd Chances
Many people have launched various projects on Product Hunt, but few have launched the same project twice. Sit back, and Iâll share some indie project horror storiesâŚ
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 wellâŚ
After two years of developing ASO.dev, we decided it was time to stop postponing marketing efforts.
Since Iâve been studying startup materials for over 10 years, we didnât 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 700â800 votes were unattainable for us, decided not to compete for the top spots. We recorded a video (finished it right on the co-founderâs birthday) and scheduled our launch for the companyâs two-year anniversary. Iâd 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 weâd given). The launch was on a Wednesday, and we got 69 votes⌠Let me explain in detail why this was a failure, and it wasnât because of the vote count-we made it into the dayâs 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 workedâŚ
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 couldnât fix their technical problems.
Second Launch
Section titled âSecond LaunchâWe 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 âFeaturedâ again, asked everyone to vote, and got even more upvotes, making it into the top 10 by the time of the newsletter.
The âProduct Hunt Dailyâ newsletter goes out at 15â20 UTC and includes the top 10 âFeaturedâ products.
You can track voting, for example, here. It clearly shows vote deductions and spikes.
It displays not only âFeaturedâ projects, but we were absent there due to having too few votes.
Takeaways:
Section titled âTakeaways:âFrom 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 isnât âFeatured,â the launch is almost useless. Nowadays, âFeaturedâ status is crucial-even if you have thousands of votes, without âFeatured,â you wonât get a badge or make it into the newsletter! âFeaturedâ projects gather slightly more upvotes (personal experience đ). I donât know if this is a new or old rule, BUT without âFeatured,â itâs mostly pointless! Whether a project is âFeaturedâ can be determined about a day before the launch-it says âFeatured onâ or âPosted onâ at the bottom.
Achieving âFeaturedâ status AFTER launch is possible, but itâs difficult and time-consuming.
Their mobile app is weird, showing only âFeaturedâ projects and usually limiting the number to 10 (+2 ads).
Some links are intercepted by the mobile app but donât openâŚ
Comment notifications are only sent to the projectâs hunter; makers receive no notifications.
Bonus Knowledge:
Section titled âBonus Knowledge:âYouâll 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 đ. Youâll also hear from interesting people launching their projects (we understand them much better now âĄ), as well as some sneaky ones claiming they supported you with their 100â500-person team on launch day, which often isnât true. Check usersâ votes if you agree on mutual support, and verify they havenât 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 didnât get significant user inflow. For 700â900 votes, they had about 100â180 registrations, with many bringing their audienceâŚ
From the video views, itâs clear almost no one watched it, despite TWO launches. From my observations, having a video is almost 100% mandatory to be âFeatured.â Changing the product category is still buggy-we canât change it again, and for some reason, ASO.dev is now labeled as the best SEO-tool.
So far, weâve had ONE purchase with a 25% discount promo code from the 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 đ