Launching on Product Hunt

This is a diary of blogstatic's launch on Product Hunt. I hope that it will inspire you in some way for your launch. I will try to be brief but forgive me if I go off on a tangent with side stories.

As with the rest of my openness about my product making and finances, I am sharing everything about the launch in this article.

Note: This article is constantly updated until the launch day on Thursday, December 15th, 2022 — with a recap of the aftermath right after that.

Wednesday, December 7th, 2022

Today is a special day. It's the birthday of my son. He just turned 11.

I mention this because I'm big into numbers and their meanings. I like to launch products on dates and numbers that are significant to me, hence, today's Product Hunt launch announcement.

I have decided to launch on Thursday, December 15th, 2022.

I picked Thursday because it has always been my favorite day of the week and not because it's good to launch that day. Also, it's enough time to prepare all the assets I need for the launch.

The assets

• A 60-90 second run-through video of blogstatic
• Post elements: Title, tagline, description, website, tags, screenshots.
• 1st comment as the "Maker"

The hunter

Justin Jackson, a long-time online friend and a true mensch, has agreed to hunt blogstatic. Justin is the founder of Transistor and the MegaMaker community, which I have been a part of since its early days.

The best part is that Justin has a massive following on Twitter and on ProductHunt, which can hopefully give blogstatic the attention it needs.

One unique thing I love about Justin is that despite his huge success with Transistor, he has continued to give back to the maker community. He could have easily disappeared and enjoyed his riches. Still, he keeps showing up time and again to give back, share his experiences, and support others in any way he can without asking for much in return.

The goal

My specific goal with the Product Hunt launch is to spread the word about blogstatic, hoping that more people will find it valuable.

Also, it would be a great win if it makes it to the Top-5 for the day. 

The #1 product for the day would be an absolute dream, but that will depend on how many friends come along to support me.

The top ranking would help with others picking it up and mentioning blogstatic in their posts, thus creating much-needed backlinks.

Your support

As you read through this diary and see me preparing for the launch, I would love to hear from you for any thoughts or suggestions about what I can do better. 

And on launch day, if you can support me in any way you feel the most comfortable with, I would highly appreciate it.

The build-up

Until launch day, I will be posting regularly about the upcoming launch and sharing all I'm coming across along the way.

Thursday, December 8th, 2022

Yesterday, I tweeted about blogstatic's Product Hunt launch on December 15th and DM'd all my Twitter friends with a heads-up. 

Luckily, most, if not all, replied that they'll be on the lookout on launch day and support it any way they can. 

I don't have a massive following on Twitter. 2,516 at the time of this writing. But, over the years, I've built solid connections — friends I've supported in any way I could and who have supported me repeatedly.

And I didn't DM all. These are the only friends I've been in touch with over the years. No cold out-of-the-blue, "support me" DMs.

Until launch day, I have 5 weekdays: Today (Thursday) and Friday, then Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.

A friend asked me what I've been reading as far as Product Hunt launches go, and Derrick's & Rob's talk at MicroConf Remote 2021 is the one that stands out.

Also, Karthik on Twitter suggested I check out his resource, where he interviews founders who have successfully launched on Product Hunt.

Friday, December 9th, 2022

Today I had it planned to work on the screenshots and think about the video run-through of blogstatic.

However, overnight I had a support ticket about one of the fonts not rendering correctly on the Clean Slate theme on mobile. I thought it would be an easy fix — in other words, a bug on my end. However, it turned out that specific fonts weren't rendering when the theme was viewed on mobile, and I ended up spending more time than I had initially thought I would.

The font in question was Playfair Display, a favorite of mine. Which I had to swap for another font, just as equally great, Prata.

Anyway, after dealing with that for a while — I ditched the "screenshots" plan and decided to finish up the Newsletter Credits feature which I ended up launching today.

Monday, December 12th, 2022

Today I was researching what the most successful launches on Product Hunt did with their posts, screenshots, and the overall presentation of their product.

The best ones seemed to be using a combination of their product's screenshots with a tiny description.

I decided to follow that rule and create a few initial screenshots, and then I asked for help from Twitter friends on which works the best.

Tuesday, December 13th, 2022

I have about a day or so to go until the launch. To be precise, a little over 24 hours since the product needs to be posted at 12:01am PST.

I feel the screenshots are done, but I want to hold on to them until tomorrow, when I hand them over to Justin for the hunt.

I tried to stay true to the brand colors from the blogstatic website so there's cohesion for someone who views these for the first time and visits the website right after.

Next, I will create the run-through video, which will be around 1 minute long, but it will probably take me super long to create as I'll cut and edit it afterward in post-production.

Usually, the way I do these videos is that I have some sort of script that I keep editing as I record and then repeat the same thing over a few times if I feel I could say it better.

For a 1 minute video, I'll probably have about 10-15 minutes worth of recording, which I then heavily edit before publishing.

So that's the fun planned for today.

Wednesday, December 14th, 2022

It's about 12 hours to go until launch, and I realize that the most nerve-racking part about a Product Hunt launch is ensuring that you have all your bases covered: assets needed for the launch.

• Post items
  • Title
  • Description
  • Website
  • Topics
• Assets
  • Logo
  • Screenshots
  • Run-through video of the product
• Other
  • The first comment made by the maker

I have all of these ready now and sending them over to Justin.

I hope tomorrow pans out fine. Fingers crossed, as I'm pretty nervous about the whole thing ???

BTW, this will be the first screenshot after the video.

LAUNCH DAY: Thursday, December 15th, 2022

It's been a super hectic and tiring day, but super rewarding!

And the day is not over yet!

I started the day by tweeting the launch tweet: https://twitter.com/valsopi/st...

DM'd everyone. I wish I remembered about Luca's tool Hivoe.com

Then replied to every tweet and comment on PH.

Also, wrote a newsletter that was sent out 

Recap

Overall, the Product Hunt launch was a major success. It was the highest month in revenue and the post–launch effect was apparent. With more customers not in my network signing up and paying for blogstatic.