Need some help - Ship by Product Hunt - pros, cons, best practices and lessons learned ⛵
Gilad Uziely
23 replies
Hey makers,
MY name is Gilad :)
My team and I will launch our product (financial+productivity app for freelancers) in about 3-4 months.
We am considering using Ship so my product will in the Upcoming Products section and I'll be able to:
- Further validate some of our assumptions
- Engage potential users to gather feedback along the development
- Get some followers on PH and maybe convert them to our very first users
So now some questions:
Timing - What do you guys think of timing, is 3-4 months too long of a time?
Engagement - Is the engagement ratio high? Do people interact with the upcoming products?
Best practices - Anything you guys think I should pay attention to? Something that works very well?
Would love to hear some thoughts and will appreciate your time and feedback!
Replies
Hussein Yahfoufi@husseinyahfoufi
Money Minx
Launching soon!
Honestly I don't think it's too long. If you have a coming soon page setup and you start collecting emails, keeping your followers up to speed on what you are working on, teasing screenshots here and there, getting them excited about the product. Asking them questions. Letting them vote on which features to work on first, etc.. You should be ok. Question is, how accurate is the 3-4 months? Can it go even longer?
Share
Sequence
@husseinyahfoufi Thanks!
I agree that creating an actual community around it will be challenging but can also become very rewarding. About your question, you know how startups work ;-) 3-4 months can become 6 but then I'll have to hang my CTO :))) Now seriously - I don't expect it to go over 4 months tops...
Money Minx
Launching soon!
@gilad_uziely hey Gilad, my upcoming page is now live! https://www.producthunt.com/upco...
Sequence
@husseinyahfoufi Cool! How long did it take to get to 120 subscribers? Any lessons you can share? Of course, best of luck! If I can help in anyway - I'll be happy to.
Songcorder
Totally off-topic, but I'm curious about the app. Can you share something more about it (in private if you want)?
Sequence
@doomhammer Hi Piotr,
Would love to :)
Here is a quick overview of how we see the problem we are solving for:
Freelancers today don’t have any financial know-how, nor do they have the time, energy, and discipline to create a financial system and stick to it.
This results in:
- They Lose an average $6,500 annually in missed tax-deductions
- They don’t pay taxes regularly and accumulate overwhelming debt
- They lack even $400 in emergency savings
- They don’t save anything toward business growth or retirement
And carry constant emotional and mental stress that contributes to lack of financial stability!
Our mission is to take away the emotional burden and mental stress while helping freelancers save more and thrive financially.
We are basically building a new type of bank build for the future of work.
Happy to answer any question :)
Sequence
@doomhammer will keep you posted :) where are you based?
Sequence
@doomhammer Cool! Love Poland! The product will be available in the US for now but would love to get your feedback :)
Hey Gilad, I've been doing some research on the same. Here's a resourceful blog I found today: https://embedsocial.com/blog/shi...
Also, to answer your first question, I believe 3-4 months is big gap and might lose the interest of the people who subscribe. Hope this helps :)
Sequence
@azharshams9 Thanks buddy!
I am wondering if there's a way for me to keep them engaged through messages and product updates along the way. Or in other words - is it a good tool for validation of some assumptions?
@gilad_uziely Got it. I'd suggest you to go ahead in that case and build a closed community over slack maybe where you can interact on a regular basis (apart from sending messages or emails). This way they would know you exist and value the initial beta testers who have subscribed. Just a thought.
Sequence
@azharshams9 Thanks!
Interesting! Do you think I can use the Ship landing page to get people to join a Slack channel? Is that you had in mind?
@gilad_uziely Not exactly. Here's what I would suggest:
- Create a landing page to talk about the product and get people subscribe for it.
- Send a thank you email to the ones who have subscribed asking them to join the Slack Worskpace for better communication.
- Send regular email updates with a CTA asking them to join the slack group as well.
The reason why i would suggest you to get them on to slack community group is to have better communication and to get instant feedback.
Sequence
@azharshams9 Thanks for taking the time. Sounds like a great way to keep them engaged and to get useful feedback.
Will let you know how it goes :)
A week or two seems to be good. If you keep the pre-launch period too long, people might forget.
Sequence
@judith_ackerman I am also interested in collecting feedback and validating some assumptions. Do you think it's too long of a period?
And Thanks :-)