How to launch on Product Hunt: Flawless App Startup Guide

This presentation was given at Product Hunt Kyiv meetup on October 2017. It will teach you:

- How to become a good citizen of Product Hunt community
- Step-by-step PH launch: Flawless App plan
- Typical mistakes or how not to screw up your rating
- What to do after PH launch: marketing for startups

You can also check our article: https://medium.com/flawless-app-stories/flawlessapp-on-producthunt-7db3e561ce7a and collection of useful articles for your Product Hunt launch: https://github.com/LisaDziuba/Marketing-for-Engineers#cat-marketing-for-product-hunt-launch

Transcript

1. How to launch on Product Hunt Flawless App Startup Guide print(“Hello Product Hunt Community”) Hello marketing without a budget. Hello free marketing channels. Hello research. Hello user interviews. Hello marketing analytics. Hello market, media and message. Hello 20% weekly growth. Hello hunters and kittens. Hello Ryan Hoover. Hello startup world.
2. Lisa Dziuba Swift learner & Growth Hacker lisa@flawlessapp.io Ahmed Sulaiman iOS & macOS developer & designer ahmed@flawlessapp.io ! Intro FlawlessApp.io — Make iOS apps look exactly as expected design
3. ! Our 2.5 years with Flawless App Hackathon First Sale First Product Launch Pivot Seconds Product Launch Sales
4. ! Our plan for today How to be a good citizen of Product Hunt Community Flawless App example: step-by-step launch plan Typical mistakes: what is better not to do Life after Product Hunt: marketing without a budget 4
5. ! What is Product Hunt for you?
6. 01 How to be a good ci-zen of Product Hunt Community
7. ☝ Try to help the community " Write constructive feedback to other products ☎ Share & recommend cool stuff from PH $ Help new PH makers with preparation % Advise startup founders how to improve their launches & Respect others & follow the rules
8. Be proac)ve and use PH opportuni)es ! What else can you do at Product Hunt? Ask Product Hunt Live Chats Jobs Hackathon
9. Let’s make PH be-er ! Report bugs, UX issues, spam " Beta-test new PH products # Treat PH as your own product
10. 02 Flawless App example: step-by-step launch plan
11. Your step-by-step plan 1. Decide if your product can be interesting for... ! Startup folks " Marketers # Designers
12. Your step-by-step plan 2. Read guides & talk to founders = 1 day Marketing For Engineers – https://github.com/LisaDziuba/Marketing-for-Engineers
13. Your step-by-step plan 3. Use PH for at least a week = 7 days
14. Your step-by-step plan 4. Make a launch plan + lists = 7 days
15. Your step-by-step plan 5. Write texts + make visuals = 4 days
16. Your step-by-step plan 5. Write texts + make visuals = 4 days
17. Your step-by-step plan 5. Write texts + make visuals = 4 days
18. Your step-by-step plan 6. Execute = 24 hours
19. Flawless App example 11:30 AM Submitted Flawless App on Product Hunt Asked local communities to support us 12:00 - 03:00 PM Asked our users to support us via Email & Twitter 03:00 - 06:00 PM Announced our PH launch in target groups 06:00 - 08:00 PM Added Flawless to PH collections 09:00 PM Sent “thank you” notes & answer on questions 10:00 PM - 08:00 AM
20. Flawless App results Flawless App Launch on Product Hunt ! #1 for 24 hours " 6 sales (2 days) # 97 trials (2 days) $ 3.2K users on site % Feedback storm Results Reduce App Launch on Product Hunt ! #3 for 24 hours # 1500 users (2 days) % Feedback storm Results
21. 03 Typical mistakes: what is be2er not to do
22. What leads to penalty Case 1 Fast growth at local time → No growth at the US time Too much support from not PH users Case 2 !
23. ! Please, don’t spam the whole world. ⚠ Don’t ask all contacts to upvote or write fake comments ⚠ Don’t post PH promo at random startup communities ⚠ Don’t spam active PH users over the Twitter
24. ! Please, don’t spam the whole world. Message to Lisa Message to Ahmed
25. ! Please, don’t spam PH team
26. ! Please, don’t cheat " Don’t buy upvotes from freelance sites # Don’t use bots, fake PH accounts $ Don’t run Facebook Ads to your PH submissions % Don’t propose hunters money for hunting you
27. 04 Life a'er Product Hunt: marke4ng without a budget
28. Marke&ng without a budget Product Hunt Launch Direct Sales Monkey Marketing
29. Marke&ng without a budget Direct Sales Linkedin messages Cold Emails Direct messages to targeted Twitter followers Sales to competitors’ users
30. Marke&ng without a budget Direct Sales Make research Follow ups Build relationship Write custom messages Propose to use your product trial I have read your article on this problem... I saw, that your company does a lot of cool mobile apps
31. Marke&ng without a budget Monkey Marke&ng 1 Basic Content Marketing Viral Activities 2 PR 3 Refferals 4 Free Tools 5 Influencer Marketing 6 Partnerships 7 Help your users 8
32. ∞∞ This is just the beginning....
33. ahmed@flawlessapp.io @ahmed_sulajman flawlessapp.io lisa@flawlessapp.io @LisaDziuba