

The Torenberg Effect: How ProductHunt Blew Up LinkTexting.com - kumarski
https://medium.com/@linktexting/the-torenberg-ph-effect-65403d621685

======
minimaxir
Ok, I am getting genuinely sick of the "We got onto Product Hunt and became a
success, and you can too!" submissions that keep popping onto Hacker News.
Your time horizon is 18 days; that's not enough to assert causality of Product
Hunt exposure on your business. And of _course_ signups would increase when
you first get publicity; that's the nature of publicity.

Additonally, naming an "effect" after yourself is _very_ egotistical and not
cute.

> _I asked my friends to take a look and if they liked it, to upvote it._

Asking for upvotes is against HN rules and doesn't work, and I believe you did
the same for this article, as 7 votes but no front page presence means that it
was hit with a penalty.

~~~
kumarski
:/

We didn't become a success, but it did help blow up our traffic.

PH got us high fidelity users in the sense that 100% of them were mobile app
shops that needed our product.

As per a voting ring, who knows.

~~~
minimaxir
_We didn 't become a success, but it did help blow up our traffic._

That's the fallacy: "blow up" is a relative term. 1 user is infinity% larger
than 0 users.

~~~
kumarski
That's actually a good point. I guess I'm mistaken.

Well at the very least, PH allowed us to focus on product and customers
entering the funnel rather than think about PR etc...

------
gk1
> This was frustrating for the simple fact that we spent more than an hour
> writing the blog post.

You are way too hopeful if you think that an hour of writing will result in
tons of traffic.

Take the time to write substantive, polished articles. Most of them will not
be hits, but once in a while your work will pay off. One hour is nothing.

~~~
minimaxir
I wish I could finish a blog post in only one hour. My last few have taken 8+
hours. :)

~~~
kumarski
Some of my hour long blog posts got a ton of traffic. What's your blog?

Here's one of my posts that I did in 15 minutes that got a ton of traffic. I'm
not even sure why.

[http://www.kumar.vc/i-sat-in-a-bank-on-friday-2/](http://www.kumar.vc/i-sat-
in-a-bank-on-friday-2/)

What's your blog?

~~~
minimaxir
Here's an example of such a post:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8425385](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8425385)

~~~
kumarski
Well done. That's a great post. You might find the data from this interesting:
[http://linktally.com](http://linktally.com)

It was shared a total of 83 times according to
[http://linktally.com](http://linktally.com)

~~~
minimaxir
Yes, I can sum up the 3 numbers at the top of the blog post. :P

------
justinsb
Congratulations on the traction. As an Android user though, I don't really get
the problem. From a desktop browser, I expect a link to the Play Store, where
I can then have the app installed to any of my devices. Is this really for iOS
users? (and is there no equivalent functionality there?)

~~~
kumarski
Thank you.

Yes. You are correct. The killer functionality that we offer today is for
people on iOS. We solve a very explicit problem for them.

Today we're integrating with BranchMetrics, which will offer additionaly
utility to Android and iOS Developers.

There is an equivalent functionality. You can install from the desktop browser
to iOS, it's just a bit more friction because it requires a cable.

The only other alternative to LinkTexting as an SMS form creator is Gravity
forms, but it's a bit awkward unless you plan on using Wordpress for your
mobile app landing page.

~~~
justinsb
Thanks for explaining - makes a lot of sense.

One cool feature (which might be what BranchMetrics does) would be to add a
one-time-use token to the URL so I don't have to log in again on the app, if I
already have a desktop login. It is annoying to try to type in a complicated
login on a small mobile device (first world problems, I know). Not sure if
this is actually feasible though!

