3 builders who never spoke to each other · contested
Count the second wave, not the referral clicks
Direct referrals understate what a launch does: in one measured week they came to four thousand while direct traffic quadrupled, referrals from Twitter rose eightfold and a design publication picked the project up. Even a launch that reached the wrong buyers seeded posts, reshares and mentions elsewhere. The opposing reading is that all of it decays to almost nothing once you run out of places to post, because roughly one product in a hundred actually takes off.
Where this splits
Two makers judge a launch on the mentions and coverage that follow in the week after, while another expects the whole burst to fade to nothing once the boards are exhausted.
2 claims against 1
Harry Dry · Victoria Duben
Judge the launch on the knock on effects following
- 01Judge a launch on its knock-on effects over the following week, not the referral count on the day, because the secondary exposure outweighs the direct clicks.
- 02A Product Hunt launch that misses your buyers is still worth running for the secondary effects: it seeds mentions, reshares and coverage elsewhere.
The burst fades once the boards are all exhausted
Assume the traffic burst you get from announcing on Product Hunt, Indie Hackers, Hacker News and Reddit will decay to almost nothing once you have exhausted the list of places to post, because only a tiny fraction of products go viral.
What it returned
- 7
Direct referrals over 7 days were 4,361, while direct traffic rose fourfold, Twitter referrals eightfold, and a Tympanus feature followed; weekly traffic of 16,616 converted 2,490 (15%) onto the list.
- 1%
Zue puts the share of products that magically take off virally at roughly 1%
Viewst went on Product Hunt eight months after its public launch, while the product was still basic. It did not reach the intended audience but generated posts, reshares and several mentions across communities and media.
Sources
- How I got 2,000 new subscribers from Product HuntHarry Dry · Marketing Examples · Results · undated
- SEO for Developers: Reaching the Front Page of Google without being SpammyCory Zue · coryzue.com · 2017-10-10 · dissenting
- Building a No-Code Ad Production & Design Tool to $50kVictoria Duben · failory.com · Which were your marketing strategies to grow your business? · 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
- 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
- Hold the launch until the product earns the traffic2 unconnected · contested