
Ask HN: How did you launch your product? - sourc3
I have been a member on HN for a while and I really enjoy the can-do spirit here and the energy to create something of value. I have been trying to build products on nights&#x2F;weekends for the past 3 years. Being a software guy technology has always been the easy part for me. For the projects that didn&#x27;t get traction I kept thinking that the ideas were just not &quot;good enough&quot;. Now that I look back, I feel that I got the launches wrong.<p>Here is my question to you:<p>Is there any suggested reading you can point me to that will help launch my next product more effectively? If some things have worked for you, can you share your experiences? If you have used a company to help run the launch campaign, can you share your story?
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timr
I'm of the opinion that the "launch" is a highly overrated concept. Unless you
have lots of existing traffic or a press embargo, your launch will consist of
turning on the product, then watching as nothing happens. Later on, if you're
lucky enough to get press somewhere, you'll get a spike of traffic that will
be gone the next day.

As an experiment to this end we developed Omniref [1] entirely in public, just
to see what would happen. We never hid the thing, even when it was horribly
broken (we even had organic search traffic before we were ready!) It made no
difference. What works is getting users, one at a time.

The bottom line is that product/market fit trumps everything. Better to just
put the product out there and try to get one daily user as soon as possible
than to worry about "launching". It's not as gratifying to the ego, but you
learn more, and that's the whole game.

[1] [http://www.omniref.com](http://www.omniref.com)

~~~
bdunn
This is spot on, and I've seen many a startup fold early on because they bet
the farm on launch day.

Each time someone new stumbles upon your marketing site - you've "launched".
And if they don't convert, figure out why and you'll get to launch again with
the next visitor.

~~~
sourc3
I love this analogy. This makes me want to bring back to life the product that
we killed after our 12 person private launch didn't get traction!

------
fragsworth
I've launched many products, but most recently I've been doing web games. Our
most recent game is Cloudstone - [http://armorgames.com/cloudstone-
game/15364](http://armorgames.com/cloudstone-game/15364)

We launched it on Facebook, Kongregate, and Armor Games.

Only one in a million products can truly spread on their own (minecraft,
reddit, google...). The rest are often really good products, that can make
money, but require unique ways to get users. For us, this meant giving up a
percentage of revenue in order to get promoted on various platforms.

One thing is certain - it is nearly impossible to launch an effective web game
by itself on a stand-alone site. Our game makes money, but there's no way we
can get any decent return on marketing investment if we tried to roll our own.
The traffic we received from posting the game on reddit was totally
insignificant compared to the traffic we received from partnering with
websites that already have users.

I haven't launched any "applications" recently. But I don't think it's much
different. Most engineers severely underestimate the importance of proper
marketing and user acquisition. If your entire plan is to launch a product
website, post it on reddit and hacker news, and see where it goes from there,
it's not going to work. This doesn't necessarily mean your product is not
viable!

I would recommend not just launching a website and hoping it gets traction.
Consider porting whatever you're building to multiple platforms, and consider
all of the app stores that you can put your product on. They will promote your
product for a percentage of the revenue. And don't feel bad about giving up
that percentage - they're providing a valuable service. They're doing the
marketing _for you_.

~~~
sourc3
Thanks for the candid reply! What I am working now at the moment is using
LinkedIn as the authentication mechanism and adds a lot of value to LinkedIn
users.

I am thinking that getting the word on LinkedIn via posts and "likes" from my
own extended network may be the way to go with this app.

~~~
sharemywin
might want to check this out. [http://blog.kissmetrics.com/how-mint-
grew/](http://blog.kissmetrics.com/how-mint-grew/)

------
basil
I'm in the situation you describe right now. I blogged about it a couple
months ago: [http://neat.io/blog/diary-of-a-programmer-with-no-clue-
about...](http://neat.io/blog/diary-of-a-programmer-with-no-clue-about-
marketing.html). The resulting HN discussion has a lot of good tips:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6686290](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6686290)

My launch didn't go 'well' to the standards that I constantly see on HN. I got
< 10 users and a lot of those were existing beta testers.

Now I'm 2 months in and I have been getting a fairly consistent number of new
users each day, however its dropped in the past couple of weeks (I'm blaming
the holiday season).

Here's what I've learnt so far:

\- SEO is very important for discovery

\- Keep your product evolving to fit the needs of your current users

\- Keep current users happy

\- Be ultra responsive to support enquiries - this is key to keeping happy
users

\- Adjust your pricing model based on feedback

\- Get your site linked to on other sites even if seemingly unrelated - I get
a bit of traffic from a design site that has my site in a list of 'beautiful,
flat landing pages'

It would have been nice to get a whole slew of users on day 1 but
realistically this doesn't happen unless you have an existing captive
audience. It does dampen the expected meritocracy that comes with developing
your own product.

~~~
sourc3
One of the most constructive replies. If you don't mind me asking, how did you
get into SEO? Did you get professional help or try to tackle it yourself?

PS: Kudos on the product, you just got yourself a future customer with the
Atlassian integration :)

~~~
basil
I initially launched the site promoting my app as just 1 page. In hindsight
knowing what I know now that was ludicrous. (You need more pages, more content
and more targeted content.) I went into it here: [http://neat.io/blog/the-bee-
website-redesign.html](http://neat.io/blog/the-bee-website-redesign.html)

I still don't really understand SEO and my site is still not ranking for the
keywords I want but I'm trying to learn.

I did get one-off semi-professional help from experts that emailed me as a
result of my blog post blowing up on HN but end of the day, you're going to
have to dig deep and learn about it yourself. This is frustrating because
looking for quality content about SEO is ridiculous. Everything out there is
so dubious and I don't know what is credible and what isn't.

Today for instance I just got a tip about content placement and how it can be
effective for SEO. I Googled around and found this list:
[http://www.mywebschool.com/blog/seo/seo-tips-for-keyword-
pla...](http://www.mywebschool.com/blog/seo/seo-tips-for-keyword-placement/)
so I'm going to try and apply it later tonight. No idea if it will work or if
its a waste of time or if the tips in there are good...

\--

Oh and another thing I forgot to mention is that a lot of people asked me to
make a video showcasing the app because they wanted to watch something rather
than scroll through a list of features. This was a good idea, no idea if its
helped with people downloading the trial but I get good feedback on the video
and at least it educates people about what my app does. Video blog post here:
[http://neat.io/blog/creating-the-bee-
video.html](http://neat.io/blog/creating-the-bee-video.html)

------
wturner
This is what most likely will happen. Expect a complete dud. After you
experience the 'dud' you with either feel the entire thing was a stupid idea
and leave, or you will think 'wait .... that can't be right' and scramble to
get users to compensate for the wash of insecurity you felt with your impotent
"launch". Good luck!

Edit: This wasn't meant to sound mean or directed to you personally. I meant
this as a general comment towards the idea of a 'launch'.

------
acuity12
I didn't launch, unless you count making it available on the internet a
launch.

As several others have mentioned here, I was not focused on "launching the
product". I was persistent about creating a solid and valuable product, and
making it available for the entire world. I researched everything I could
about building websites, particularly performance and SEO. The project was a
learning project for me - it was technically "launched" since the moment I
bought the domain. I continually iterated after learning new things about the
web, and after coming up with new ideas. The growth came from a steadily
increasing SEO presence and Social Network presence. I never once saw a code
or feature iteration cause an immediate flood of attention, even when I gave
them a little nudge on social networks. I will admit though, that I never
attempted an all out launch of anything.

The project is mainly a fun site, but it has become one of the best tools for
creating animated GIFs and memes on the internet. There have been a few big
spikes from various press events, or Reddit frontpagers, but the true value
has come from continually making the product better and slowly gaining the
trust of the internet.

I'm certainly much newer to this than many people here, but my first big
project now makes enough profit to support me fulltime, if I were to choose
that (I work at another company as well). The site is imgflip.com if you're
wondering.

------
spencerfry
Launching is very overrated. I mainly emailed friends, family, and shared
[https://www.uncover.com](https://www.uncover.com) via social media. Luckily,
it got picked up by Hacker News and some other outlets. We got some great
traffic in the beginning, but a "good launch" alone isn't going to make or
break you. It's about the longterm value you can offer your customers.

~~~
sourc3
Thanks Spencer. It is encouraging to see success stories, especially
considering you are around the block from the day job.

~~~
spencerfry
You're welcome. Happy to answer any q's!

------
johnrob
Did you get any users during your launches? If so, I'd consider them a
success. The idea that you get flooded with users after a single launch event
is a myth. I see the process like this:

1) Some kind of press release (TC, Show HN, blog post, etc)

2) Get at least one user

3) Iterate features and establish that the users actually need the product
(would they be upset if you quit?)

4) repeat 1-3

~~~
sourc3
Yes I did get about 10-12 users on the day of the launch. I suppose I am a bit
biased reading the wildly successful launches that get thousands of users on
the first day. One can only hope, right? Thanks for your response.

~~~
nfm
I think this only really happens if you have a large existing audience that
you funnel into the product, or you're selling it on a platform that delivers
either launch traffic, or "Trending" traffic (eg. Google Play, iOS App Store).

What's your process for launching your products?

~~~
sourc3
My current project is around providing value to LinkedIn users via an app. I
believe LinkedIn itself and the app store are two obvious platforms that make
sense for me to focus on.

------
adamb0mb1
Restaurants learned this ages ago: start with a soft launch, and learn your
weaknesses. Iterate. Then "launch."

------
frankdenbow
Launch is only part of the equation. You add/remove features and find where
your new users are and find a way to get in front of them. Its a process not a
one off launch event. I used to think too much on the launch but my experience
says its about the consistent marketing effort.

I launched my subscription tshirt service
([https://www.startupthreads.com/monthly](https://www.startupthreads.com/monthly))
on Hacker news and got a little press but it grew after finding companies each
month and finding ways to reach new customers. After iterating a bunch you
find out what works, as you'll never have the perfect launch strategy to
start.

~~~
sourc3
My theory so far is that the initial spike during launch is what gives the
product the momentum. That is why I asked my question specifically around the
launch.

Here is what I have tried so far after the launch with one of my products that
has been sold for the code-base.

\- Pre-launch page to collect emails (collected about 400, when emailed only
about a dozen people signed up)

\- Tried Google adwords with only 0.0005% conversion rate (which ended up
being prohibitively expensive for my budget).

\- Posted on HN :)

\- Emailed about a dozen sites that could potentially have an article about my
product.

\- Contracted a 3rd party company to make cold calls.

\- Sent out printed flyers to potential customers.

\- Personally visited some potential customers and pitched the idea.

\- PR web sites where I published a couple of press releases.

Above activities resulted in about a dozen free tier users. Are there any
other avenues that you used to bring more traffic to your product after the
launch?

------
programminggeek
Hustle. Schlep. Market. Tell people. Get them to sign on the line which is
dotted.

There are a lot of things to launching/marketing a product, but it always
comes down to hustling and marketing hard consistently over a long period of
time. Think 3+ years to be an "overnight success"

------
Kiro
I loathe launching and talking about my products so Facebook Ads and AdWords
are good shortcuts. It will cost you but if the product is any good the word
will spread as soon as you have a few customers/users.

------
bcambel
You need to sell the idea first, then implement. Get some traction without
writing any code, write related blog posts about the vertical market, about
the topics that your potential customers will be interested in, and keep
engaging with them. Talk with them.

~~~
sourc3
That is a good idea. Since the product name is not yet 100% set in stone, do
you think it makes sense to start a new blog just for this purpose or use the
personal blog?

~~~
bcambel
I may pick a name that is simple and start from there. We thought about it for
a long time, discuss it a lot, etc.. then one day we decided that we are going
to find the name, and searched for it relentlessly for the next hour and we
find quite okay name for our startup at the time. Just pick a simple name. And
buy the domain, create your blog at there.

<yourawesomestartupname>.com/blog

Place all the social buttons, create twitter account, put an RSS feed, create
an email list in mailchimp ( create a popup for email subscribers ) etc..

~~~
sourc3
Thanks for the detailed reply! I will certainly implement this.

------
rooshdi
Focus on longevity. Work a job. Save and invest. Keep costs low. Find and
contact prospects personally. Provide support. Gauge feedback. Improve.
Survive. If you need help, I run a platform at webmenu.org that may help you
help people. Best regards.

------
sideproject
I posted a similar thing awhile ago, hopefully this helps.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6488822](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6488822)

------
t0
Make growth hacking a main priority. If you can get every user to invite one
other user, you'll have a huge site in no time.

~~~
bradhe
> If you can get every user to invite one other user, you'll have a huge site
> in no time.

The ironic thing about this is that you have to have product/market fit for
people to recommend the product to other people. Consider every case (there
aren't many) where this strategy was successful.

This does seem to work sometimes in the case of e.g. Kickstarter, but less
than half of kickstarter projects reach their funding goals so it's not a
great example.

------
bradhe
Perhaps its your self consciousness at play here, but you haven't told us what
any of your products were...

~~~
sourc3
I did not want to create a very wordy post with all details.

I have launched 3 products (an appointment scheduling SaaS, a Twitter based
sweepstakes management service, a private beta of a social product
review/recommendation site) and about a dozen apps. Only the appointment
scheduling venture was sold to a third party for the code base which had about
a dozen free-tier users at the time of the sale.

The social product recommendation venture did not go further because the co-
founder did not want to continue going forward. I still believe it's a great
idea but I put it on the back-burner for a while until I can find another co-
founder.

At the moment I am working solo on an app first service (subscription based)
and would like to have a more successful launch this time around.

PS: If anyone is interested about the social product review and recommendation
site let me know.

~~~
indieandroider
Hi - I would be thrilled to hear more about the social product review &
recommendation app! Looking forward to hear from you!

~~~
sourc3
Please email me (in profile) I could not find your contact info.

