Lessons I learned From my First ProductHunt Launch

I had been preparing for my product launch for the past 15 days, working on it every single day. I wanted to make my product better, so I focused on creating a better onboarding view and crafting a compelling announcement post. I also marketed my product through various channels and talked about it on social media to reach a wider audience.

Yesterday was my launch day, but the result was not what I expected. It failed miserably, and I’m more than devastated by the outcome. I had put in a lot of effort, and it’s disheartening to see that it didn’t pay off as planned.

This experience, though disappointing, will be a valuable learning opportunity for me to improve and prepare for my future products.

What I had

I had almost 100 paying users before the launch. I had over 1000s of e-mail subscribers on my newsletter which was not that related to the actual Product. Still they were my audience that cared about what I had to say.

From the failed launch, I learned tons of lessons, and this is a reflection of what I have learned. This is completely my own experience, and some other people might have a different experience as well. So, take it with a grain of salt.

Product Hunt is a vanity metric

I was launching on Product Hunt aiming for the #1 spot that day, but I only came in at #12. Although we landed on number two, it made Geno conversion. We made zero sales from our product hunt launch. Rather, the email I sent, the announcement posts that I made on different social media channels, they were able to generate some kind of sales rather than the actual product hunt launch.

Unless you are explicitly selling to developers or programmers, you will not find your audience on Product Hunt. Rather, they will be spending there time somewhere else. It’s most of the time, wannabe developers, wannabe product launchers that are visiting the site all day and increasing its traffic.

Even if you make it to the number one product of the day, you are not gonna get a good sales number.

The only thing that you get is the badge. That also makes no difference. People do say it gives a social proof but I don’t think a lot of people care about that social proof. If you have a good product and if you are really solving a pain problem for people, they won’t be looking for social proof.

Don’t Buy Upvotes

I had no intention of buying upvotes for Product Hunt. But even after 15 minutes of launching, I had sent emails to my existing users, my email subscribers, and created announcements on Reddit and Discord.

Still I had only 2 upvotes, and I was at #10. So I decided to take a chance because I didn’t want to be left behind.

That was an emotional decision, one that I regret, made in the heat of the moment. I purchased upvotes for $100 that helped me go from #30 to #13, but it was not sufficient.

The upvotes your buy for are not your real customers. They are just there to exchange an upvote in exchange of the money you provide. That won’t generate a sale for you.

Your users won’t upvote you

You know why? Because he has to sign in first, then create an account, and only then will he be able to upvote. That is a ton of work for a normal user. He will just visit your Product Hunt launch and will skip it. If he is already an existing Product Hunt user, he would definitely upvote but in most of the cases, people do not have an account for Product Hunt so they will just skip it.

It’s very hard to get Featured

The Product Hunt launch happens at 12 am Pacific Standard Time and most of the people are asleep at that time. So if your audience is primarily from countries like America, Europe, etc., then they won’t be visiting your product hunt launch at that time. So obviously, organically you won’t be able to get into the top positions, even if you have tons of audience.

Most of the products, I can guarantee that they are buying ProductHunt upvotes.

Because you know why?

You will see most of the time on the top of ProductHunt leaderboard, there will be a completely new application that you have never even heard a name of.

They will be beating some other products from big brands. You know Ideogram right? It was placed at #9.

Do you think people will try to upvote a new product they’ve never thought of, or would they upvote a launch from an existing brand?

I don’t say they have bought upvotes, but a new product beating a launch by openAI GPT 4.5. Is that possible organically?

Of course not. It’s rigged. People are buying upvotes to get into the leaderboard. And even after you buy upvotes, there is no guarantee because other products might also be doing the same thing.

Fuck ProductHunt, Focus on Marketing

Product haunt is a way to market your product, but it’s not the only way. In the recent times, the system has been rigged, making it more of a waste of time than a means to acquire real customers.

Instead, what you should do is focus on real marketing. Find where your real customers are. Where do they like to spend their time?

Post on social media. Share your product on to the subreddits. Reach out to creators in your niche. Offer them your free demo or even a partnership, some kind of affiliate. Or any kind of monetary gain for them to help you market your product.

Talk to people via cold emails, messages or talk about your product on social media. Start creating content. Take marketing in your own hand. Like grow with organic social content.

Instead of promoting your product in front of the random people, take your product in front of the real potential customers.

Invest your time on marketing. Target the people whose problem you are trying to solve and bring your product to their attention.