#2 on Product Hunt +200 Users +$87 MRR

One week ago I launched Pigeon on Product Hunt.

Pigeon is a CRM gmail extension originally built by Pat Walls and I acquired it earlier this year.

TL;DR
✅ #2 Product of the Day
✅ +1,000 Pageviews
✅ +200 Users
✅ +3 Paid Users
✅ +$87 MRR
✅ Ask Me Anything

The Decision to Launch on Product Hunt

After a few months of making sure the damn thing runs, I noticed Pigeon had never been on Product Hunt. Never. I had been a user of Pigeon for almost 2 years, and I can't believe this.

Just as I do almost every time I launch a product on Product Hunt I made the decision at about 10 am local time. I'm based in Asia right now and so this means 10am is still 5 hours ahead of the new day in Product Hunt land.

Put up a quick edited version and scheduled it for the next Product Hunt day.

I had time to get materials together and...

oops.. where did the day go?

I was on Daddy Duty through the middle of this day, due to a new-ish baby boy.

While my day is filled with Dad stuff.. Thankfully, I have a wonderful group of online friends who will take one look at a product hunt page and rip it to shreds, while also giving great critiques, and suggested changes.

So for 5 hours I kept checking my computer, and kept editing this and that.

The Launch

Hastily I wrote a tweet. I cringe each time it's retweeted because it's so quickly written.

I also let a few of my wonderful friends/makers groups know about the launch. because they had helped and we could check in over the day to see how it's doing.

Quickly it got to #4 product of the day, and for most of the day it stayed there. #3 product of the day is a fellow maker, Derrick.

The Word

As the day goes by I'm on twitter, facebook, and writing an email to my lists. To get the word out appropriately is always difficult.

It's not a matter of just spewing out "hey go support" There is an absolute need to make sure that each person who hears about Pigeon, actually wants to use it, can use it. And finds it useful.

The Community

I've launched on Product Hunt before. Gotten to #2 and #3 product of the day. Each of those products weren't "pushed" by me, but rather pulled by the community. Something about them clicked with the Product Hunt community.

Newsletter Virtual Mall caught the eye of Chris Messina, a BIG PH'er.
OnlySheets caught the heart and humor of the community.

For Pigeon, I was surprised that my own personal community pulled it along. Posts on Facebook groups popped up once someone found out it was ME... little ole ME that was behind it.

Once I got a nice email out to my email lists, things really took off. It was near the end of the "Product Hunt" day and suddenly I went from #4 to #2.

The OG

Originally created by Pat Walls, I feel like a shepherd of Pigeon, not a founder. And I reached out to Pat to let him know that it's on Product Hunt. I then put him on a maker. I think this helped get more attention.

The Traffic

On the day of the hunt, the traffic spiked. New users signed up in droves. Issue here is that Pigeon has a free plan. Install it for free, then use it a bit, then upgrade.

Over 100 users signed up in the first day, This is roughly how many sign up in a month.

I was elated! Excited! Amazed!

and then noticed....

0 Sales.

The Sales

The next day those at the top of the hunt get in Product Hunt's newsletter. This where the money was made... I think.

By the end of 48 hours after Launching on Product Hunt I had 200 new users, and a sale.

It's now 7 days later and I think I can attribute 3 sales to Product Hunt directly.

That turns out to add $87 MRR to my revenue. And 3 users are now doing way way more in Gmail.

Pigeon is a CRM, and CRMs take a while to figure out if you want to use it, and pay for it. Also CRMs are extremely sticky. Before I used pigeon the last CRM I used for 2 years. I expect to be a Pigeon user for another 2 years, if I owned it or not. (I was a user of Pigeon before I acquired it from Pat)

The Misses

Here are a few things I think I missed on this Product Hunt.

• Images: I could have done better images if I took time to make new ones.
• Video: I love making videos but just ran out of time to make an intro video for Pigeon on this particular day. I think this hurt me a lot. OnlySheets has a fun video and it's short. Pigeon is a CRM, screenshots do it no justice. I think I should have shown Pigeon off in a video.
• A Plan: I probably could have put together a really good plan to launch, but I didn't. I shot from the hip. But this saved my sanity. Once the day was over and I had 0 sales, I was happy. IF I had planned for weeks and got 0 sales, I would have been devastated.

The AMA

Well that's my story. It's probably not the entire story. If you want to know something, ask in the comments. Happy to answer as best I can.

Go ahead, Ask Me Anything.