My prep for a Product Hunt launch on Monday
On Monday I'm launching Mugshot Bot on Product Hunt. I thought it would be fun to document what I've been working on so others can follow along with my journey.
I'll be updating this post throughout the weekend and during the launch!
Monday - 7 days to launch
- Apply some UX changes from user feedback
- Start researching successful PH launches
Tuesday - 6 days to launch
- Implement a better free plan so new users can get a feel for the product
- Draft new pricing model
- Read PH's launch guide
Wednesday - 5 days to launch
- Draft e-mail campaign describing pricing changes and PH launch
- Meet with two accountability buddies to exchange launch tips
- Start letting fellow indie hackers know I'm launching on Monday
Thursday - 4 days to launch
- Launch new pricing model
- Send e-mail campaign to 100+ users
- Read Demand Curve's PH playbook
- Sneak peek early access deal to Maker Log community
Friday - 3 days to launch
- Draft Product Hunt page with gif and maker comment
- Write this post (meta!)
- Stir up some conversations on Twitter
- DM interested folks with early access to the launch deal
Saturday - 2 days to launch
- Automatically switch to normal pricing when launch deals run out
- Add Product Hunt badge to site
- Add Product Hunt badge to personal blog
- Start to get real nervous
Sunday - 1 day to launch
- Reach out to folks for testimonials/quotes
- Fine-tune positioning doc to help write comments
- Product Hunt callout on homepage
Monday - launch day!
- And we are live! https://www.producthunt.com/posts/mugshot-bot
- Reach out to Product Hunt support because post isn't showing up
- Tweet "general" message to promote - followed up with a live-tweet thread
- Hit #4 product of the day!
- Get completely overwhelmed by the amazing feedback
- Broke into the top 3 products of the day!
- Link to PH page in Twitter bio and pin tweet thread
- Add a favicon (whoops!)
- Tweak welcome email to ask for a tweet
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Best of luck with the launch 💪!
Thank you! I'm very excited and very nervous at this point. 😬
@joemasilotti, I would also add https://previewhunt.com/ to one of your days.
You can basically mock out your product hunt page on this website to get a sense of how everything will look :)
Very cool! Thanks for the tip.
Looks like a great idea Joe! I want to launch on PH soon too, so got a couple of questions:
Thanks in advance! And no rush - I know you're busy with the launch! ;)
Thank you! The 100+ people are registered folks on the website. They manually signed up for an account. I didn't use PH Ship for this. I tried it for a different project and didn't get much value from it. Honestly, I ran into a lot of bugs and issues so I kind of gave up. I'm doing PH-exclusive discounts (annual, lifetime deal) but no PH-specific landing page. Unless I find the time to do one this weekend, that is!
Cool, that's clear. Thanks for the insights!
Very cool idea! How did you make your landing page? (Tools, Services, etc.)
Thank you! Everything is built with Ruby on Rails and Tailwind CSS. A lot of the UI for the landing page is inspired by Tailwind UI.
Looking good! How's DemandCurve's guide? That service looks really good 😮, but expensive $$$
P.S. This post could use more images 🌅
I actually just entered my email and got access to that page. Is it behind a paywall now or something? And good call, I'll add more images ASAP!
Loving the public updates Joe!
Thanks Charlie! It's been fun to stay accountable in the public these last few weeks.