From Zero to Launching on Product Hunt in 4 Weeks: My Strategy and Results

Hi there!

I’m Maria, an indie hacker and data analyst. Today, I’m going to talk about my journey from zero to launch on Product Hunt in just 4 weeks: how I did it and the results for my product and my social media accounts afterward.

If you don't have time to read, you can listen to it here on my Youtube channel Maria's MRR Growth.

I launched AI Marketplace with Top AI-driven Analytics Tools on Product Hunt January 24th. But 4 weeks ago, I didn’t have any idea what my startup would be about. I didn’t believe it was possible to launch a product quickly.

There are many developers who have been working on their products for months, a year, or even years, without launching their product.

And many developers have difficulties in promoting their product. I asked makers: What's your main problem right now as a solopreneur/indie hacker? Many of them answered that it’s marketing and promotion.

I made at least 5 projects, but I abandoned them all. Whenever I needed to showcase them, I thought, “No, this product is too bad to talk about.” So, I decided to do it fast.

My idea was to:

• Build fast.
• Promote my startup for free every single day, even when it’s not ready.
• Launch on Product Hunt after 4 weeks.

This was my formula for free startup promotion:

You might say that’s great, but we are waiting for the results. Here they are:

• I created AI Marketplace myself using Python Django, HTML, CSS, and Bootstrap.

• I gained more than 500 subscribers and over 90,000 views on X (before I didn’t use X) and realized that the X community is very supportive.

• I wrote articles and posted them on Reddit, Indie Hackers, Medium, Hacker Noon, and Hacker News.

• I made 3 short videos.

• The number of users increased. I had some users on this website before due to organic traffic.

On launch day, January 24th, I realized that competition was huge and PH didn’t feature my product. But I posted anyway and asked my community to vote.

• So far, I got 72 upvotes.

• What about sales? I got 3 sales.

Is it good or not? For me, the fact that I launched quickly and got more traffic is a good thing.

But on the other hand, there are some issues.

1. After the launch, I realized that I hadn’t activated my lemonsqueezy account. It was a big mistake. So, all of these sales were done in test mode. People tried to pay and lemonsqueezy counted it as payments, but in fact, they didn’t pay. I realized this in the middle of the launch.

2. If you don’t get featured, you don’t get organic traffic and upvotes. Only people I asked voted for me. I know every person from each upvote. So, don’t expect significant progress if you aren’t featured or don't promote your product better than others.

Will I launch again? Yes. But next time, I should consider these issues.

What do you think about my journey? Write in the comments.

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