Case Study: How my app got to the top of Product Hunt today

My new app Balance is currently #2 #1 on Product Hunt, and I was requested to write a case study on how it got there. The app was also featured on TechCrunch an hour after the Product Hunt launch went live (I had previously emailed with the author).

This will be quite quick as I'm trying to keep up with comments and emails from today's successful launch, but I will do my best!

What's the secret, you ask (other than building a great product)? Marketing.

50% of your time should be spent on marketing.

You've probably heard this before, but it's true. I struggled quite a bit with the marketing early on, because I'm a developer and I want to code! But marketing is extremely important.

Social

I built Balance in public with an open Beta and posted updates on Twitter along the way. From this, my personal Twitter account grew from ~200 to ~700 followers.

I had two successful posts (one unrelated to the app though) that brought most of my new followers. (Tweet #1, Tweet #2)

I also set up a Mastodon account on https://indieapps.space and posted about it there, although it has not received that much attention over there yet.

The following helped a lot with the marketing of Balance, but it was not everything I did.

Product Hunt

As soon as possible (30 days ahead of launch) I made Balance available on Product Hunt's new "coming soon" page.

During these 30 days prior to today's launch, the app's launch page gathered more than 100 followers. These people will be notified about the product's launch by email on launch day. This will be a great boost!

How did I get 100 followers? I guess an interesting app logo, title, description, and image. But I also tweeted about it, which definitely brought in a few.

Cold emailing

I put together a press kit for the app using https://impresskit.net and gathered a list of people who might be interested in testing (and reviewing/writing/publishing about) the app.

The above-mentioned website provides a nice list of journalists who might be interested in reviewing and publishing about the app. I also went to YouTube and looked for channels reviewing apps similar to my own, and put them on the list.

Then I just sent the email (or Twitter DM) to everyone on the list that I could find contact details to. To make the offer a bit more exclusive, I asked if they wanted early access to the app (since it was just available for pre-order on the App Store—something you also should do, but it won't help with the Product Hunt launch necessarily).

Not that many replied, but it landed me the TechCrunch article and some upcoming YouTube reviews though—and that's only the beginning!

Launch day

Launch the app, tweet/toot/post about it on socials, and reply to all comments!

Post here on IH as well—that's what I'm doing now!

I want to stress the point though that, while marketing is very important for the success of your app, without a product that can stand on its own without marketing (i.e. an app people want to use), you will never succeed.

Make sure to work on something that people love. And to figure that out, ship early and often.

I hope this is useful to someone. I probably missed something, but please leave comments and I will reply!

If you would like to help me to get to #1 on Product Hunt (on my bucket list!), please upvote and comment on the launch: Balance: Mindful time tracking ❤️

If you want more of my stuff, you can find me on Twitter and Mastodon. 😊

Happy Holidays! 🎄

Update: Balance finished as the #1 Product of the Day! 🥳