Branding Byte #014

If you follow me on LinkedIn you know that I do not just share content about personal branding, growth, and content creation.

For the last 2 months, I’ve also been sharing content about Argil, a startup I am part of. Last week we went for the official launch of the first version of the platform:

No-code AI automation to 10x your productivity.

To make this more official we decided to launch on Product Hunt, and if you’re reading this today you want to know how we ended second top product of that day.

That’s why I wrote this newsletter, to give you a deep dive into why and how to launch on Product Hunt.

But first, here’s in numbers what this got us 72 hours after the launch:

• 1000 new subscribers

• 3000 + Website visits

• First paying customers

Not only those numbers are encouraging, but we also confirmed the vision of the relevancy of No-Code AI automated workflows.

Why Launch On Product Hunt?

Now let me tell you why you should consider launching your SaaS or platform on Product Hunt:

• Quality of leads: People there want to find new tools

• Visibility: 6m visits per month

• Credibility: It’s hard to get a top spot

• Dominos effect: Media from your niche cover tools get there

The reasons are pretty straightforward, and the answer should be a no-brainer, no matter your niche or products you’ll get traction and benefits from this.

Still, things need to be super clear for you going there to get clear data and consumer insights to decide wether or not you should pivot your vision.

How to launch on Product Hunt?

Launching the V1 of a product can be a very daunting process, you’re completely filled with doubts, so here’s the process we built to successfully launch Argil (We made it to the second spot).

1/ Set a hypothesis to test

Make sure you answer the following questions:

• Why are you launching?

• What product hypothesis (Vision you have) are you testing?

• Who’s the audience you want to target?

• What data do you need to consider a satisfying launch?

2/ Choose a date and commit

What’s funny is that productHunt doesn’t let you give up. Once you scheduled a launch, you can’t delete it, you can just postpone it and not by a lot.

This means that the sooner you decide, and create your coming soon page on product hunt, the more time you’ll have to properly prepare.

Some things to have in mind, when launching on Product Hunt you’ll need:

• An optimized landing page with the same message you share on product hunt to increase your chances of conversion.

• A specific discount offer for the community on Product Hunt.

• A Mock Ups of the user interface to get the output your app provides.

• A launching video.(Super important to get attention)

3/ Create relevant content

Once you’ve created your page, you need people to subscribe with their Product Hunt account, by doing so they’ll get notified once you’re live.

Here are a few tips for your content:

• Make all your team involved.

• Announce in a first post the day of your Product Hunt with a Link to the page.

• Promote your features in demo videos (Focus on benefits people will get).

• Put forward the transformation people will get by using you.

• Increment tension: Every week write a post about your launch.

• Give a reason to people, this needs to be their moment as much as yours.

LinkedIn and Twitter are two powerful socials to pr

4/ Landing page optimization

On top of your landing page, you can add a badge that redirects to your Product Hunt launching page, and every traffic you got to your website can convert to traffic to your Product Hunt page.

Your launching page is just the first step toward conversion. People can’t buy directly from product hunt, they’ll have to jump on your landing page and a dissonance between this one and what they had on PH can have a real negative impact.

Make sure your wording and positioning are aligned.

5/ Leverage existing network

Now is the time to think about upvotes. To get those eyeballs on your product, you need to be in the top 5 products of the day 5 hours after your launch.

It’s not the organic traffic that will make it happen, what you need is people that will support you.

The easiest step is to leverage your existing network, here’s a secret method I used:

1. Extract your LinkedIn connections

2. Filter to keep only CEO and CTOs

3. Go on Product Hunt and check if they have an account

4. Send them LinkedIn a message with your Upcoming page

5. Add them to a list you’ll send messages to on the launch day

6/ Warm up your product hunt account

Your existing network is a good way to have a head start, but it’s not enough to keep rising during the day. So hear me out, you need to spend some time daily on Product Hunt to connect with fellow makers and hunters.

I personally spent 1h a day 3 days a week, and here’s the process I use:

1. At mid-day, I look at the 5 top products of the day.

2. I upvote and support with a comment the maker

3. I check their Product Hunt account and see if they shared their LinkedIn

4. I add them on LinkedIn with a note in which I say something about their product.

5. I add them to a notion folder to keep track of the launch day

This process took me 30 mins, then I did this:

1. Checked the open discussion of the day

2. Answered some questions people ask

3. Add them on LinkedIn and to my notion folder

Every day I ended this process with 7-10 new people to contact on the launching day. It may seem like nothing but understand the rule of compound effects. Do this for 10 days and you have 70-100 people to contact, do it for a full month and you just reached the average top ladder number of upvotes (210-300).

That’s why I really advise you to start 1 month prior to your launch. It’s the best way to get a real hedge on launching day.

7/ Launch day

Now, my friend, you need to be ready for war. (I am half joking)

You need to launch at 00:00 am Pacific Time, the first 4H are crucial, to be shown in the top ladder you need to beat the competition in that time laps because during it on ProductHunt the top ladder is not shown. Products are shown at random and only after that time are shown in the score order.

Here’s what we did on launch day:

1. Start without close relations

2. Slack channels, WhatsApp groups of friends

3. DM all the people we warmed up before

4. Then we started with people we warmed up from the product hunt (I sent 200 dms in 1H)

We reached mid-day, and my LinkedIn account was down 3 times already as I had linked the account on a. notion folder and opened from there, LinkedIn saw that as a third-party automation software so pay attention to that.

Finally, during the afternoon I did two things:

1. Re-sent messages to people that didn’t open the first message I sent them.

2. Go down to the discussion section of the product hunt, keep scrolling down, and find new people you didn’t contact yet.

Send them a connection request with your launch link and ask genuinely for support and feedback, this alone helps us get more than 100 upvotes, and you won’t stop until you’re tired, I did this until 2 am.

At that point go to bed, you did your best and prepare yourself for J+1. Now is the time when the real fun begins.

You got your first paying customers, you got hundreds of new users, and data and consumer insights are the elements that will drive your vision.

I hope you enjoyed reading this newsletter as much as I enjoyed writing it.

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If you found that useful, follow me on Linkedin, I help 4500+ people daily leverage growth through content creation.

Till next week for a new Branding Byte!