PH Feature Idea: Follow-Up After Launch
Alejandro V. Betancourt
16 replies
Innovators. Visionaries. Dreamers. Contrarians. Thinkers. Doers.
If you are like me, you are all of the above. Just not quite in the right balance.
We spend quite a bit of time researching, learning, collaborating with and drawing inspiration from others on Product Hunt, among other platforms (some people call it procrastination).
We know how hard it is to build something.
That's why we get really excited when we see a cool project on Product Hunt.
We are impressed with the team's idea and execution, we REALLY want to support them. Too see their baby grow and take over the world!
Next steps? Upvote. Go to the project's website and sign up for a mailing list or create an account.
Aaaaand that's where my pain point is right now...
There are a lot of projects that I really want to support. Even though I am not their ideal customer right now or even if I don't have an immediate use for the product. I see the value in it and want to let them know they are on to something.
Also, let's be honest, how many mailing lists is it reasonable to join before you start losing control of your inbox?!
Suggestion: Create a 'Follow-up' feature on Product Hunt; a dashboard of sorts where you can see all the projects you've upvoted (you can currently see a simple list on your profile organised chronologically) AND be able to see updates or receive updates from the team.
PH currently allows you to 'Subscribe' to teams before they launch. I think it would make a lot of sense to expand this kind of functionality to the entire life cycle.
Benefits for Founders: allows you to capture and retarget more leads. Maintain momentum after a big initial spike on launch day. A very valuable additional layer at the top of your conversion funnel. I would pay for this.
Benefits for PH: add significant value to Founders creating a potential additional revenue stream (bundle within existing Ship product). More time and engagement from regular users who are not launching.
Benefits for Users: be able to follow cool projects as they mature. Go from an early supporter to an early adopter. I strongly believe these products can enhance your life, if only we didn't forget about them 24 hours after clicking Upvote.
This seems like a massive, untapped distribution channel.
// No need to ask for permission: Could this be built by any third party using PH APIs? Hit me up if you are up for a cheeky challenge!
Let me know your thoughts! I'd love to know how other people use PH and how we can create more value for everyone.
AVB
Replies
Paul Woodthorpe@exopaul
I would go one further and suggest that Product Hunt go through all the old listings and update them to the ones that have expired. They can keep them listed but just mark them clearly as no longer operating. I have often seen projects in a search that are 1-2 years old and when I click through to them the domain name is up for sale.
Keep them listed for historical/nostalgia/inspiration reasons but make it clear the project seems to be abandoned.
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@exopaul I 100% agree on you on this! This has happened to me too. I come to PH and do a search for whatever productivity tool I need, as I browse through the results, I come across older projects that are no longer active. It would be good to label them, narrowing the focus on the active ones and facilitating discovery. It really goes back to the core issue: 'How do we support founders get discovered and maintain momentum after launch?' Thanks so much for your input :)
This looks so promising. "I have launched but now what??? PH has nothing to offer after that", this line always remains a question. Not much but I guess there are many people like you who can help us. If there will be a feature to follow up afterwards, it would be game changing in my opinion.
@albus_v_betancourt sounds good. But i am sure u wlll not gonna come to post after a month, just for giving me an update. :P
@aarvy Thanks for the feedback Rajan! This is very encouraging! Specially coming from another builder (I am coming from the regular user just upvoting things), I think it is good market validation! This post hasn't attracted much interest, but I'll keep exploring the PH API, I'd love to patch together something basic to present the concept better! I'll keep you posted :)
Also subscribe option is only for ship, and for that we makers need to pay 70 USD, the amount is way more for developing countries, so there are many products who never got the chance because of missing parity. .
@albus_v_betancourt Great idea! There are so many great products and ideas floating around here, sometimes I'm like: I'd totally invest in this. Why not add something like Micro Investments / Crowdfunding?
@alex_ciorapciu You are on the money! I know that PH has created a seed VC fund, so the next logical progression would be to extend the capital raising options to everyday users. This is an excellent approach to serve the category of 'I may not be a user right now, but I love the idea and want to support it (financially)'
Archbee
This seems like a great idea and I think it will bring a lot of value into the platform. I'm curious to see what is going to happen
@paul_nica Thanks for your feedback! The post does not seem to have gathered as much interest or support as I would have liked. But I am still going to spend some time exploring the PH API, would love to try to hack something together using No-Code tools and then submit it as a PH release. Surely we can get more upvotes there? :)
Archbee
@albus_v_betancourt For sure, you got my support on this idea!
Great post AVB.
A follow up feature without spamming emails could be huge for this platform.
Thanks for the feedback! It is very encouraging to hear from others. I was a bit wary to share publicly. Happy to know others agree and hopefully this will gain more momentum and become a feature soon :)
What a great idea! I always upvote stuff and forget, would love to get updates somehow.
@dave_galbraith Thanks for the feedback Dave! I'll make sure that if this idea goes somewhere, that I reach out to you and keep you updated :)