2 builders who never spoke to each other
Use the launch as a demand test
Put the thing in front of a large indifferent audience and the response tells you whether anyone wants it. A hundred signups was all one founder needed to settle whether the idea had a market; another shipped a free open source build to the boards first and read the stars, pulls and placement as the answer before writing a paid version. Reading the day as a verdict is more useful than reading it as growth.
The method
- 01
A hundred signups is enough to settle whether an idea has a market, so treat a launch spike as a validation instrument rather than a growth event.
- 02
Put the free open-source build on Product Hunt and GitHub first, and read the response as your demand test.
What it returned
- 100
About 100 signups from Product Hunt were more than the founder needed to judge the idea.
- 6,000
The open-source Fathom trended on GitHub, passed 6,000 stars, placed fifth for the week on Producthunt, and its Docker image was pulled over a million times.
Sources
- From almost shutting down to tripling our MRR - Fathom AnalyticsPaul Jarvis · usefathom.com · From almost shutting down to tripling our MRR · 2019-11-04
- ABBY: Here’s What Andy Has Learned from an A/B Test ToolAndy Goldschmidt · failory.com · How did you grow ABBY? · undated
the second source
Three plays a week, for the phase you are in
No roundup of links, no news. Three tactics more than one builder arrived at separately, with the numbers each one returned and the disagreements left in.
More in product hunt
- Count the second wave, not the referral clicks3 unconnected · contested
- Run it even when you will not chart3 unconnected
- Launch the small or unpolished thing anyway2 unconnected
- Launch it again once something real has changed2 unconnected
- Put the same release on every board that day2 unconnected
- Convert the day into email subscribers2 unconnected