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Abadesi

How can we help with your Product Hunt launch?

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Hi makers! Many of you are launching products, or getting ready to. I'd love to know what the hardest things about launching are, or hear what your concerns are. I'm here to answer any questions and share some honest advice. I've been on the community team since 2017 and have seen over 1,000 launches since then!

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Ezra Mikhel
Hi there, can you tell me what's the most important tip or effective advice to keep in mind while launching on Product Hunt?
Abadesi
@stafftimerapp Yes! We put all our best advice together here
Nazar Atamaniuk
@abadesi Hi Abadesi, first of all, its awesome that you would like to help makers here! Yes, there are a lot of difficult parts with launching products. The hardest things are to receive first subscribers on prelaunch products, for example for our product, we received 10 subscribers in 2 days, but it was really hard, second thing is to find a hunter or mentor, who will help with success launch on product hunt.
Alex Devero
@abadesi @nazar482 Agree with you Nazar. The hardest thing is getting traction in the prelaunch phase. Educating makers in some form, through connection with hunters or mentors, is a good idea.
Abadesi
@nazar482 Thanks for sharing! Pre launch is so tough because it requires doing a ton of things that don't scale and starting really really early before your launch. Most successful launches can leverage a community that is already months - maybe even a year in the making. What would be the most helpful way to share learnings/advice about building an audience pre launch?
Abadesi
@nazar482 For mentorship on successful launches there's a lot of blog posts out there about launching on PH although sadly many contain inaccurate information. From what I have seen the majority of launches that end up in the Top 10 are those where the maker hunted it themself. That said, typically the maker has a large combined audience across Product Hunt and social media and they can ask all those folks to check out their launch which certainly helps.
Dario
@abadesi I just launched my first project today 😆 Hardest part is submitting; I think the key is to accept that not everything is going to be perfect and go with the flow.
Artem Galenko
@yapartase what difficulties have you had ?
Lance Seidman
For us at Munchron, getting the right legal terms for submitting our Apps and making the Artwork for our products. FDA approval is super tough, esp., since Munchron is basically put back by these regulations and therefore things like Cavity, our tooth detection tool or skin detection, is merely impossible to submit and get accepted, even with warnings!
Abadesi
@lanceseidman that sounds tough! how do you find legal advice or the right support to get you through it?
Lance Seidman
@abadesi Sadly no support, but lots of research to find the best lawyers and lobbyists to provide a guide on how the FDA works and how to get our product approved.
Lance Seidman
@abadesi Great news, we finally got one of our AI/ML App's in the store: https://www.producthunt.com/post.... We're making progress!
Lisa Dziuba
@abadesi thanks for asking and proposing help to the community! It will be great to understand if the project is suitable for Product Hunt. For example, we often do open-source projects and it's not clear if they are good fir to share here or not. Not actually "a product" but very useful. The same comes to the researches. For example, some researches like Remote Work Report was a pretty good fit for Product Hunt. While we did research on How Design Companies Build Communities (https://flawlessapp.io/designcom...) and it's not clear if it's a good fit for launching on Product Hunt or not.
Abadesi
@lisadziuba I like to check the homepage daily and see what types of products the community connect with. There's often a lot of variety.
Juliet Oberding
@abadesi Hi, The hardest thing is all the hard work of developing plus launching then trying to find the right ways to people to get people to take a look at your product.
Abadesi
@juliet_oberding this makes sense - I imagine it's pretty hard to start building an audience and community while also building the actual product! Do you share the story of building the product as you go to help find followers?
Juliet Oberding
@abadesi thanks for your reply! Yes, I write about the process on Medium at least once each week. I'm learning more as I go about engagement and rallying my community. Today I launched my second product and each time I learn so much.
João Paulo
You could help makes to connect more. To find business partners for their ideas.
Abadesi
@joaopvilla have you tried writing a goal in Makers about it... or using discussions?
João Paulo
@abadesi Kind off, I'm exploring the possibilities :D but I mean, a way to connect people and ideas would be great, I know we have workarounds nowadays, but sometimes I miss a proper space to do this kind of networking
Abadesi
@joaopvilla cool! what might a networking feature look like? cc @de
João Paulo
@de @abadesi No idea, to be honest. I guess we still need to understand better if this is really a problem or if it is something out of head. But I would like to see other people ideas/projects and what they need to see if I can help in anyway, or something like this.
Dhruv Bhatia
@abadesi I think a lot of us feel that finding hunters is difficult and very crucial at the same time.
Abadesi
@dhruv_bhatia Hi Dhruv - I am curious to hear more from you about what makes it crucial given the majority of top voted products are hunted by the maker.
Dhruv Bhatia
@abadesi Interesting insight. Thought it was crucial because it would increase visibility (popular hunter = lots of followers on PH and Twitter + more credibility). The thing I'm most worried about is not reaching enough people.
Abadesi
@dhruv_bhatia that's why it is very important to build an audience long before you launch. Either through social media posting, an email newsletter, whatever works best for you. That will be way more effective than getting a famous hunter.
Abadesi
@dhruv_bhatia Successful launches happen when target audience + good product align.
user 8315
I just launched today. I think the hardest part is getting the first upvotes to even get it noticed. I've contacted everyone building it with me to ask them to upvote, and I hope it will get easier through the day, as it's currently quite early in the morning for the US.
Abadesi
@archiebaer don't ask for upvotes, ask for reviews, comments and engagements. People should have a choice on whether or not they vote for it, and you will likely have a better outcome if you just encourage folks to check it out and tell you what they think. Good luck!
Andrew Lutsyna
Hello, I registered on product hunt a week ago, but i don't see any activities on my site. How do I get subscribers and followers before I actually launch my product? Thank you
Abadesi
@andrew_lutsyna Community building is certainly a long game and benefits from activities that don't scale. Look at how your target audience behave online and build a strategy that plays into that.
Ľubomír Lajoš
@abadesi Hi Abadesi, thanks for support. Actually I looking for a good ux/ui or designer hunter for our upcoming product. I contact severeal people but, still without answer.
Abadesi
@lubomir_lajos have you thought about hunting it yourself?
MEKH
@lubomir_lajos @abadesi What does it mean "hunt it myself" ? Thank you.
Abadesi
@lubomir_lajos @aboubakr_mekhatria I meant - you could share your product directly instead of asking someone to hunt it for you
Paolo Pacchiana
Hey! This is not related directly to launching a product, but, how we can make connections here on Product Hunt?
Abadesi
@paolopacchiana You can follow individuals you are interested with, start discussions... what exactly do you mean by 'connection'?
Stas Kulesh
Hi @abadesi I believe we're ready to launch a major update for Karma, it has been more than 6 month since the last feature. When would be the best time to post? Shall I do that under my account or you could hunt it? Karma Rewards update I'm talking about:
Abadesi
@stas_kulesh The best time to hunt your product again is when there have been significant changes to a product. Is this a 2.0? We've just been talking about how makers should hunt their products ... I hunt products I'm excited about, find interesting and I've played with because I want to be authentic.
Robert Zalaudek
@abadesi thanks for being willing to answer everyone's questions and provide feedback. We're getting ready to launch a product for the first time in the coming weeks and this thread is really helpful.
Joe Zhou
Hi Abadesi, we have a mature product called Shuttercase. But I only got to know PH recently and registered just around one week ago. How could we build audience around this product in relatively short period of time prior to the launch?
Abadesi
@joethebest It would be hard to build a significant audience in a short period of time but start with thinking about your target audience and finding out where they spend time online, then reach them there with a compelling proposition/value adding knowledge.
Florin Muresan
Hi. I am trying to publish my launch but I can't. I'm trying to change the schedule hour to 2 AM PT, I updated, after save, there is schedule to 2 AM PT (in the edit panel), but when I return to the launch page, is unsaved. It's still show the last scheduled setup (11PM PT). Can you help me out?
Abadesi
@florin_muresan Hi Florin the best way to get support help is via the intercom chat bubble on the bottom right corner since someone from the team is available for live help every day. Did you resolve this issue?
Jason RIchard
It's somewhat disheartening to read that in order to be successful on PH one needs to already have a large social following. If one has that, what is the need then for PH?
Abadesi
@cdjasonrichard I don't know where it's been said that to be on successful on PH one needs to already have a large social following, I certainly didn't. Plenty of products that have been loved by the community have been launched by indie makers, high school kids, first time makers, you name it. What certainly helps is having a community around you - size is not as important as finding folks to whom your product is very relevant. Or just making something really awesome with useful applications/delight for all.
Endrit Rushiti
I just lunched my app , and It's hard to get the first 1k downloads . Check the app : https://play.google.com/store/ap...
Adejuwon Adewoye
I need to know how to follow on this app.