5 important lessons I learned from my first launch!

Niamh McGlade
21 replies
Yesterday we launched Hurree on Product Hunt and although we beat most of our targets there were mistakes we made that we will definitely remedy in the second time around. 1. Utms are your best friend As part of our launch, we offered two paths to Hurree, a link to our landing page and a link directly to sign up. We included a Utm in our landing page but overlooked it on the link to sign up 🤦🏼‍♀️. This meant we had to waste time researching direct sign-ups to verify whether they were actually from Product Hunt. 2. Comments are key Upvotes and reviews are great but we found the most value from the comments on our launch page and actually found it had a big impact on our placement throughout the day. If we had known this going in we would’ve pushed harder for comments at the beginning rather than halfway through. 3. Ignore your launch dashboard until the end I was guilty of constantly watching our launch dashboard and it brought no good. Don’t worry about the numbers, just focus on engaging and spreading the word about your great product. 4. Expect peaks and throughs- don’t panic There will be moments where you feel like things are moving a million miles and minute and other times when it feels like time has stood still. Don’t panic, activity and engagement comes in waves and in those moments of calm go out to other platforms like LinkedIn etc for a boost of motivation. 5. There will be Bots and inauthentic hunters When first launching I didn’t think much about bots etc but once I launched it was definitely front of mind. As soon as Hurree went live we started receiving messages to our site offering upvotes for money which goes against the whole point of this platform. Also, our launch page had traffic from users giving the same feedback on every other product. Although this isn’t harming anyone it’s just annoying when trying to concentrate on the real feedback. This comes with any online platform, however, so my best advice to to just try to ignore it. All in all, it was a great experience, I spoke with some amazing people and we’ve already got some super insightful feedback. Hopefully, some of this helps anyone in their upcoming launch and if you have any questions just drop me a message 😊

Replies

Thank you for sharing this with the community. Very helpful I sights!
Julia Doronina
Thanks for sharing! Do you have any actions that you would definitely change or an approach in your launch?
Niamh McGlade
@julia_demyanchuk I definitely would triple-check our links to make sure we are tracking everything effectively. Also, when speaking with users asking for support I would specify that we'd like comments too. I think leaving it open, simply asking for support, everyone naturally just upvotes.
Niamh McGlade
@julia_demyanchuk Also start building your community way before your launch, both here and on socials, reddit etc. You can never be over-prepared 😅
Darcy Andrews
I agree with these points
Chris Lester
Great insight! Love it! Rooting for you!
Ashleigh McCabe
Agree with all of these Niamh! I think another key learning point for me is not to expect everyone who has clicked on the 'notify me' button ahead of your launch day to come back and support. I would still say it's great to get as much support as possible before your launch by promoting your coming soon page, but this is almost a bit of a vanity metric as not everyone who has followed your company will come back to provide feedback or support.
Niamh McGlade
@ashleigh_mccabe Brilliant point. Definitely was hoping for more of those people to show up on the day.
Carol Moh
Thanks for the insights and really interesting about the comments! I had heard this has a big impact (I read in one post it’s almost like 1 comment is equivalent to 3 votes but not sure if that is true?!) Some great takeaways and the next launch I’m sure will be even better than this one! 🙌
Philipp Jackson
Niamh, thanks for sharing! Great insights.
Huudle AI Project Assistant
wov, what a journey and great insights! thanks for sharing
Maria Anosova 🔥
Thanks for the information. Very accessible and clear, will try to take everything into consideration for our launch.
Delia Wu
ChatDesigner.ai
ChatDesigner.ai
These are great advice, Niamh! Remind me to check my links all through my post.
Amy
These are very insightful points and learnings @niamh_mcglade - thanks for sharing!
Aslan
Thanks for such useful tips. I’m also having a launch soon and I wouldn’t want to make such an important day worse for myself. I hope everything works out well and the result is decent. Here is my product, join us 😊 https://www.producthunt.com/prod... I wish you further success and new heights!
Huudle AI Project Assistant
Thanks for the tips! And good luck
Saad Muhammad Sajid
Thanks for sharing your insights. Wish you all the best for your upcoming launch.
Fedrico
Thanks For sharing!