How we went to Product Hunt
Not so long ago, namely July 22, we went to Product Hunt. Looking ahead, I’ll say that we didn’t get into the top 3 by the end of the day, but for some time we were close enough to this. I want to share my experience of what is worth and what is not worth doing in order to become lucky on Product.
So, let's start again. Product Hunt is an American (not really) community. As part of this community, every day the rating of startups they vote for opens. If someone is lucky to be in the top lines of the rating, he can receive publications in the world press and investment proposals. If not, he will receive good feedback from the market and will understand what to do next. The most important thing here is the presence of a Twitter account, since only it gives the opportunity to register and participate in the community. And to post a project there, you will first have to get the status of a “maker”, which is also not so simple.
What affects the rating of projects on Product Hunt?
Who is voting. According to our personal calculations, one vote from an active participant is 2.5 votes from a newcomer.
Where do they come from. Did the voice come from a direct link to your project? Poorly. Ideally, a person should first go to producthunt.com, and only then find your project there and vote for it.
The dynamics of the vote. There is no consensus. Someone thinks that it is better to immediately drive away all your friends in the first hour, while someone thinks that it is better to stretch this pleasure for the whole day.
The number of comments under the project.
Exclusivity. If the product is launched exclusively, it rises a little higher in the ranking.
Of course, this is only part of the parameters. Everything else is called secret sauce, and the devil knows what else is included.
Before going to Product Hunt
If you plan not to check the idea, but skim the cream, it is better to make sure that the audience really needs the product. As Karpolan says, think: “But am I not making garbage?” In our case, at the time of the release, we saw this picture in analytics:
The product is worth checking: you need to give it to bug- and user-testing, and, among other things, to a stress test. The guys from QA light and GoIT helped us with this. If you are sure that everything is gorgeous - let's deal!
First you need to prepare a “list of lists”. What do we need for a successful launch?
"Top Hunter." You can find the links here and here. If Top Hunter writes about you, all of his subscribers will receive a notification about the new product. Important: many of its subscribers are active members of the community and their votes are valued higher.
List of startup-related groups on Facebook, LinkedIn, Slack. Also, do not forget about Twitter profiles.
Prepare a list of collections that you find yourself in. There is such a thing as collections on Product. They are united by some common theme. You must tag the owners on Twitter and ask them to add you to the collection.
List of media in case you get to the top. It will be possible to write to them, something like: “Hey, we are in the top and doing a cool thing. We want to share it with your readers! ”
Prepare a media kit. Create a folder with the name of your product, in which you put screenshots of the interface, photos of the founders, a press release (or not - decide for yourself) and market research.
Gather all your friends together. A lot of friends. There’s an incredible amount right, as you have to add votes.
Make a landing with a special offer for community members. They should be greeted and given a promotional code.
Make a company on PublicFast.
Hang on the website the top bar, notifying that you are on Product Hunt. It can be done using Hellobar or Introbar .
Comb all your accounts on social networks. Seriously, reviews are written even where you will not wait for them.
And finally, check all your advertising sources.
Now you need to make a small launch. Connect a referral program, post your product on the Beta List and Startup List and collect emails of those people who want your product! By the way, placing on the Beta List takes a month, and for $ 100 they can place you within five days. This usually happens on the second or third day, so plan your placement so as not to be on the site at the weekend.
It is customary to answer all voices with tweet. It’s better to prepare some template answers in advance with the words thank you and the question: “How do you like our product?”.
Finally, screw the analytics and check how your support team works.
Release day
When everything is ready, you can "start the debut." Choose Tuesday or Wednesday, 10:10 a.m. Kiev (00:10 a.m. SF). Write “Top Hunter” in advance (you’ve already started talking to him, right?) About the fact that he should post you at number X and time Y. Write about it in full detail: September 10, 2015 at 00:10 GMT -7. In addition, indicate that you need an exclusive launch. It takes 24 hours to approve the exclusive, keep this in mind. “Top Hunter” will ask you for some screenshots, a product demo video (if any), twitter pitch, links to Twitter accounts, platforms for which your product is suitable. After that, you will need to write the first detailed comment, what kind of product it is, what problem it solves, the better than others and all that.
Bingo! Your product on Product Hunt. Better to go have a smoke, make tea / coffee. In the next 48 hours, you will find solid work. There will be two peak periods - the height of the working day in the USA, then in the EU. As soon as you like - immediately send a thank you tweet and subscribe to this person. All comments must be answered immediately and better if one of the founders does it.
Further it is worth starting an advertising campaign. The most important thing in the first couple of hours is to get into the top, so it's time to call your friends. Next, send emails to those users that you have in the lists. Do not forget to ask for a collection.
And away we go. Articles in the media, messages in groups, add friends, ask for help from the community in the form of a like-share. The main thing is to avoid the word "Upvote", otherwise fly away in the ban. As soon as you gain 100-150 votes, write immediately to friendly foundations, incubators, angels so that they support you and send out information through their network of contacts. If you gain more than 500 likes or stay in the top - take a screenshot and write to the world press. If the votes have exceeded 1000, I congratulate you, everyone will know about you.
All day X, all you have to do is to launch sources of advertising on time and communicate with people. Over the next 48 hours, you will receive interview requests and investment proposals from global funds, even if you don’t get 500 likes.
Our results
We collected only 170 likes on the first day and then got another 22. During this time, we got about 10,000 unique ones on our website and about 600-800 registrations on the first day. It was spent $ 216 on launch, which went to pay for PublicFast and BetaList.
Publicfast provided coverage of 16,471 people, 358 referrals and about 200 signups, a ton of comments and feedback on Facebook, as well as several press releases. This is the channel that we used, use and through which we will launch two or three more campaigns before the end of the year. And if they enter foreign markets, we will stay with them until the end.
BetaList - about 400 transitions and a little over 200 registrations. The conversion was different from source to source. The average landing conversion was 31%. And we also received two offers from the first echelon of Western funds.
Our mistakes
We stayed all day in the region of 5-7 places, and then sank lower. Why did it happen? The Hunter posted us earlier. We deleted that post, and the next day he could not do it again, since he already had several projects. I repeat, several times and very accurately indicate the date and time of publication! Do not give direct links to the project and find even more friends.
Actually, if we then knew about the rules for ranking projects, most likely we would have been in the first positions, since at some point startups started to overtake us with a significantly smaller number of likes. You should not go to several resources at the same time. That is, do not try to squeeze a maximum of one day out of Product Hunt and, for example, HackerNews. Proceed sequentially.
And the most important. We are sitting in one country, and the whole “party” is in another. All you can do now is try to join this party, at least at the Internet level. In Ukraine, by the way, there are two excellent initiatives to support our projects on Product Hunt. The group is on Facebook and on Slack (invite only), and here you will find the presentation that I gave at the last “Product” meeting. Participate in communities, write in English, develop your social accounts and then, sitting here and putting a little more effort, you will be among the best in the West (in fact, no, but still). Good luck
So, let's start again. Product Hunt is an American (not really) community. As part of this community, every day the rating of startups they vote for opens. If someone is lucky to be in the top lines of the rating, he can receive publications in the world press and investment proposals. If not, he will receive good feedback from the market and will understand what to do next. The most important thing here is the presence of a Twitter account, since only it gives the opportunity to register and participate in the community. And to post a project there, you will first have to get the status of a “maker”, which is also not so simple.
What affects the rating of projects on Product Hunt?
Who is voting. According to our personal calculations, one vote from an active participant is 2.5 votes from a newcomer.
Where do they come from. Did the voice come from a direct link to your project? Poorly. Ideally, a person should first go to producthunt.com, and only then find your project there and vote for it.
The dynamics of the vote. There is no consensus. Someone thinks that it is better to immediately drive away all your friends in the first hour, while someone thinks that it is better to stretch this pleasure for the whole day.
The number of comments under the project.
Exclusivity. If the product is launched exclusively, it rises a little higher in the ranking.
Of course, this is only part of the parameters. Everything else is called secret sauce, and the devil knows what else is included.
Before going to Product Hunt
If you plan not to check the idea, but skim the cream, it is better to make sure that the audience really needs the product. As Karpolan says, think: “But am I not making garbage?” In our case, at the time of the release, we saw this picture in analytics:
The product is worth checking: you need to give it to bug- and user-testing, and, among other things, to a stress test. The guys from QA light and GoIT helped us with this. If you are sure that everything is gorgeous - let's deal!
First you need to prepare a “list of lists”. What do we need for a successful launch?
"Top Hunter." You can find the links here and here. If Top Hunter writes about you, all of his subscribers will receive a notification about the new product. Important: many of its subscribers are active members of the community and their votes are valued higher.
List of startup-related groups on Facebook, LinkedIn, Slack. Also, do not forget about Twitter profiles.
Prepare a list of collections that you find yourself in. There is such a thing as collections on Product. They are united by some common theme. You must tag the owners on Twitter and ask them to add you to the collection.
List of media in case you get to the top. It will be possible to write to them, something like: “Hey, we are in the top and doing a cool thing. We want to share it with your readers! ”
Prepare a media kit. Create a folder with the name of your product, in which you put screenshots of the interface, photos of the founders, a press release (or not - decide for yourself) and market research.
Gather all your friends together. A lot of friends. There’s an incredible amount right, as you have to add votes.
Make a landing with a special offer for community members. They should be greeted and given a promotional code.
Make a company on PublicFast.
Hang on the website the top bar, notifying that you are on Product Hunt. It can be done using Hellobar or Introbar .
Comb all your accounts on social networks. Seriously, reviews are written even where you will not wait for them.
And finally, check all your advertising sources.
Now you need to make a small launch. Connect a referral program, post your product on the Beta List and Startup List and collect emails of those people who want your product! By the way, placing on the Beta List takes a month, and for $ 100 they can place you within five days. This usually happens on the second or third day, so plan your placement so as not to be on the site at the weekend.
It is customary to answer all voices with tweet. It’s better to prepare some template answers in advance with the words thank you and the question: “How do you like our product?”.
Finally, screw the analytics and check how your support team works.
Release day
When everything is ready, you can "start the debut." Choose Tuesday or Wednesday, 10:10 a.m. Kiev (00:10 a.m. SF). Write “Top Hunter” in advance (you’ve already started talking to him, right?) About the fact that he should post you at number X and time Y. Write about it in full detail: September 10, 2015 at 00:10 GMT -7. In addition, indicate that you need an exclusive launch. It takes 24 hours to approve the exclusive, keep this in mind. “Top Hunter” will ask you for some screenshots, a product demo video (if any), twitter pitch, links to Twitter accounts, platforms for which your product is suitable. After that, you will need to write the first detailed comment, what kind of product it is, what problem it solves, the better than others and all that.
Bingo! Your product on Product Hunt. Better to go have a smoke, make tea / coffee. In the next 48 hours, you will find solid work. There will be two peak periods - the height of the working day in the USA, then in the EU. As soon as you like - immediately send a thank you tweet and subscribe to this person. All comments must be answered immediately and better if one of the founders does it.
Further it is worth starting an advertising campaign. The most important thing in the first couple of hours is to get into the top, so it's time to call your friends. Next, send emails to those users that you have in the lists. Do not forget to ask for a collection.
And away we go. Articles in the media, messages in groups, add friends, ask for help from the community in the form of a like-share. The main thing is to avoid the word "Upvote", otherwise fly away in the ban. As soon as you gain 100-150 votes, write immediately to friendly foundations, incubators, angels so that they support you and send out information through their network of contacts. If you gain more than 500 likes or stay in the top - take a screenshot and write to the world press. If the votes have exceeded 1000, I congratulate you, everyone will know about you.
All day X, all you have to do is to launch sources of advertising on time and communicate with people. Over the next 48 hours, you will receive interview requests and investment proposals from global funds, even if you don’t get 500 likes.
Our results
We collected only 170 likes on the first day and then got another 22. During this time, we got about 10,000 unique ones on our website and about 600-800 registrations on the first day. It was spent $ 216 on launch, which went to pay for PublicFast and BetaList.
Publicfast provided coverage of 16,471 people, 358 referrals and about 200 signups, a ton of comments and feedback on Facebook, as well as several press releases. This is the channel that we used, use and through which we will launch two or three more campaigns before the end of the year. And if they enter foreign markets, we will stay with them until the end.
BetaList - about 400 transitions and a little over 200 registrations. The conversion was different from source to source. The average landing conversion was 31%. And we also received two offers from the first echelon of Western funds.
Our mistakes
We stayed all day in the region of 5-7 places, and then sank lower. Why did it happen? The Hunter posted us earlier. We deleted that post, and the next day he could not do it again, since he already had several projects. I repeat, several times and very accurately indicate the date and time of publication! Do not give direct links to the project and find even more friends.
Actually, if we then knew about the rules for ranking projects, most likely we would have been in the first positions, since at some point startups started to overtake us with a significantly smaller number of likes. You should not go to several resources at the same time. That is, do not try to squeeze a maximum of one day out of Product Hunt and, for example, HackerNews. Proceed sequentially.
And the most important. We are sitting in one country, and the whole “party” is in another. All you can do now is try to join this party, at least at the Internet level. In Ukraine, by the way, there are two excellent initiatives to support our projects on Product Hunt. The group is on Facebook and on Slack (invite only), and here you will find the presentation that I gave at the last “Product” meeting. Participate in communities, write in English, develop your social accounts and then, sitting here and putting a little more effort, you will be among the best in the West (in fact, no, but still). Good luck