Need some help - Ship by Product Hunt - pros, cons, best practices and lessons learned ā›µ

Gilad Uziely
11 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
Money Minx
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?
Hussein Yahfoufi
Money Minx
Money Minx
Launching soon!
@gilad_uziely hey Gilad, my upcoming page is now live! https://www.producthunt.com/upco...
Hussein Yahfoufi
Money Minx
Money Minx
Launching soon!
@gilad_uziely I recently signed up for the paid Ship plan, will let you know how it goes
Piotr Gaczkowski
Totally off-topic, but I'm curious about the app. Can you share something more about it (in private if you want)?
Piotr Gaczkowski
@gilad_uziely Gdańsk, Poland
Piotr Gaczkowski
@gilad_uziely OK, you got me interested even more. Waiting to see it live :)
Piotr Gaczkowski
@gilad_uziely Sure, I'll be happy to check it out :)
Azhar Shams
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 :)
Azhar Shams
@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.
Azhar Shams
@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.
Judith Ackerman
A week or two seems to be good. If you keep the pre-launch period too long, people might forget.