Beyond Product Hunt: Where Else Do You Launch Your Product?
Hey Product Hunt community!
We gearing up for the launch of WebGremlin.ai and of course, planning to submit to PH. But I’m curious, where else do you share your products to get traction? What are other platforms, forums, or communities that have worked well for you (like hackernews)? And while we’re at it, what’s your go-to initial launch strategy to make some noise?
Thanks in advance!
Replies
We did a combo: PH + a small email list + launch post on Indie Hackers. Also DM’d a few early users with a personal invite — got some great beta feedback that way.
@tomina_veronika How did you initially grow your email list - was this with a landing page or users you gained from other platforms?
@tomina_veronika Emailing our clints is good idea but they are just a few. Thank you for sharing
I'd say it depends on the product you're selling.
We managed to get over +500 beta testers by doing inbound marketing on LinkedIn on subjects related to our solution.
Reddit can also be a source of users, but you have to play by the platform's rules. It takes time, but it's a worthwhile investment.
I wouldn't recommend Quora, which I think has lost some of its quality.
Now we're moving towards a strategy with content creators to gain reach and create content around our product. The relationship with creators is time-consuming, but some really play the game and the feedback is very positive, if you target them well.
@maxime_jegat Thank you for sharing! We are also talking with micro influencers, but a lot of them chrage a lot and it's difficult to define who is legit.
@mzkvisuals True! I use to ask them insights about their communities and best cases with other clients. It's a good filter to identify which one is pro/legit.
On YouTube, affiliation works well and helps to spend less on flat fees. You can also try with them some incentive bonus. For instance, I like to propose a low flat fee for the content creation and an engagement bonus if the content perform well (eg: +$50 very 10K views, capped at $500). It's a great way to recognize their work, to encourage them produce a good piece of content and you'll pay for a video that have actually worked.
@maxime_jegat That's clever! Thanks
Here is what we did to get our first 10 paying users:
Pre Launch
1.We shared our challenges and asked for feedback during the building phase (design, user persona, pricing, marketing, basically anything).
2. Help and support others, and make friends on Twitter.
3.Engaged in conversations where people are talking about the problem we were solving (you can use F5Bot, a free service that emails you when your selected keywords are mentioned on Reddit or Hacker News).
Soft-Launch
4. Create a no-brainer offer and DM potential users to share their feedback.
5. Reach out to users over DM of our previous product.
6. Joined the PH community on LinkedIn and share love with people asking for support and ask for feedback if they are our ICP.
About to Launch
7. Promoted our product in the communities of products we used to build your product (like softr, a no code website builder, has a community)
8. Joined the community of founders/creators we love (our favorite is morningmakershow)
9. Promoted our product on "pitch your product" tweets.
10. Launched on launchpads like Uneed, Microlaunch.
11. Launched our product on relevant platforms and directories. If you don't have time, I will be happy to help with Submission part with Boringlaunch. I am the founder of Boringlaunch.
Cross- Launch
12. Collaborated with founders and platforms having the same audience as ours.
13. Find creators and founders whose products or services work well with ours. (For example, we are building a platform submission service, Boringlaunch so we collaborated with a launch platform to create a bundle of featured listings on the platform with our submission services on other platforms)
Post-Launch
14. Tried ads on social platforms (didn't work out for us, but it may work for you)
15. Overdelivered and ask for a testimonial.
16. Shared your small wins and learning over the internet.
17. Try, try, and try until something works, and double down on what works.
All the best for your launch 🚀
P.S. The order of these steps may vary based on your product, audience, and 99 other factors. So, feel free to adapt and experiment. I have shared the list of communities where you can promote your product here
@gamifykaran So I'm very curious about Pre-launch #3, because I tried that and found to my surprise that I was kicked out of Reddit forums as a spammer even when I didn't mention my product by name. Things seem to have gotten ultra-strict on that front, can't even ask if anyone wants to beta test for free.
@spongefile Reddit is tough, I agree. My old account got blocked as well. For beta users you can try twitter or linkedin.
Super helpful list, thanks @gamifykaran (and nice work on Boringlaunch).
+1 on F5Bot. I ended up writing an application to do the same for LinkedIn and Product Hunt.
@grey_baker thank you
@gamifykaran That's a whole guide! Thank you
Soon to launch, so following!
@marko_jurisic thanks :)
Besides PH, Beta List is a good way to showcase your product to early adopters! You can check it out (yet PH is much bigger and drives more traffic).
@hugo_pochet nice, I will for sure!
Graphify
Like you mentioned Hacker News is a very goodly. There are also some sub Reddits, like side-projects, one can use to launch their product.
@hussein_r thanks, I'll definetly reserch them
I think of Product Hunt as the grand place to launch. Before PH i keep posting on my Twitter TL, i post on subreddits, get feedback, I post on other platforms like peerlist, etc etc. Once I feel confident enough I launch on PH. I have a new launch planned which I am pretty excited about! Will be out mostly by next week
@ayush_pawar1 thank you for sharing this
minimalist phone: creating folders
I think that the most quoted are @Uneed and @Microlaunch :)
Llanai
for indie makers I recommend the following:
- peerlist - vibrant community of makers, mostly in India
- huzzle - up and coming community
- realreview.space - my community geared for minimalistic feedback after matching with target audience
if you are going for big numbers :
- reddit
- YouTube
- LinkedIn
@ari_nakos nice, thank you!
A big one for me was LinkedIn. I waited too long to launch there - had already been going for a couple of months, getting small numbers of users by commenting on Reddit. I wrote a short LinkedIn post and got ~20 signups from it.
I've never focussed on building personal brand / network, but it turns out that I'd been doing so on LinkedIn without realising it. Highly recommend launching there, particularly as what you've built is B2B.
@grey_baker Thanks. My LinkedIn network is not that strong but I'll definetly use it
@mzkvisuals I would have said the same of mine - I've only ever connected with folks I actually know. Was still a big boost, though
I am new to PH and just tried a first launch yesterday - playertrac.ai.
I have launched successful B2B apps but I have never tried to launch a B2C product. The app had 4 people upvote it yesterday on PH (thank you)! However, seeing other launches with 100's of users upvoting here on PH suggests that most successful launches have already curated an audience through some other strategies as others have suggested in the comments.
Love this thread — so many scrappy strategies here 👏
For GoodGist, we’ve had the most traction from what I call “ops whispering” — dropping into niche Slack groups and sharing real lease ops horror stories (like the $18K penalty from one missed lease email 😬).
Also did a few 1:1 outreach rounds with founders buried in inboxes. Instead of asking for feedback, I just asked: “What’s the last email you wish you never missed?”
Curious if anyone’s found luck with cold outreach that doesn’t feel cold?
@goodgistai Nice, thanks for sharing. Slack groups is a nice idea
@uaghazade Nice, will do. Thanks