The most common question about Product Hunt + my reaction
Business Marketing with Nika
29 replies
Noticing the shift.
A few months ago (maybe one year) the most common question I got was: "Will you hunt us?"
For the last couple of weeks, I have been getting the question:
"Does it make sense to launch on the Product Hunt?" 🤔
My answer:
Yes, but instead of aiming for the product of the day, try to improve the product + you can get the backlink. Times have changed.
I have never heard someone say: "People bought my product because I was a product of the day."
People pay for the value of the product, not for the 250 x 54 px badge.
1️⃣ Get the feedback
2️⃣ Improve your product according to the feedback
3️⃣ Earn domain authority with the "do follow" link
4️⃣ Get extra visibility
5️⃣ Win if you want (but the success will be to be featured)
+
Have a look at other products (you can also apply reciprocity and truly help other people to improve their products)
Replies
Ash G@ash_grover
Completely agree! The badge is nice, but the real value comes from feedback, iterating on the product, and getting visibility. Also, helping others and building connections in the community is key.
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@ash_grover Ash, have you launched, or are you about to launch?
@busmark_w_nika Haven't yet, but will do probably in near future :)
Sometimes the product is good enough. But it's not communicated clearly. If you get feedback on your launch before you launch you can easily go from "not featured" 😅, to nr1. I helped 2 launches already reach nr1 this month). Some cases are of course out of reach to be featured. But some are just needs some love. 🥰 Something to think about. I see a lot of people blaming PH for raising the bar. But in truth you're responsible for your own success. And feedback is really the key now days on PH. Yet very few people seek it. So if your contemplating launching, but your unsure if it will get featured. Get feedback first. You'll increase your odds tenfold. Also if you're featured, you will get a notification in the admin panel. So that there is no guessing on launch day.
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@sentry_co The notification is a good indicator as increasing demands but it haven't been there for several months. Enough for damaging reputation and raise doubts in people. Just saying that being No. 1 is fine but not guarantee that people will be purchasing the product like crazy.
But feedback can increase chances to improve the product which leads to more satisfied testers → customers.
@busmark_w_nika PH isn't about gaining customers. It's about changing lives. It's the place to announce your self, it's the start of the journey, not a marketing channel for mid journeys. This is what people got upset about, ph was abused and used as a spammy marketing channels for non innovative products. That was never the intent with PH. PH is just the place get that first flywheel spinning if your product is 👉relevant to the times👈. I have not heard a single complaint from any makers that has this mindset. Makers who want free marketing on the other hand are upset. But 😅 PH would die fast if the spam continued like that. # Sorry not sorry.
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@sentry_co I'll disagree on some things because I have seen quite good and useful products a few months ago not being featured. PH started as a newsletter to show products (usually the meaning of the newsletter is to curate or promote something).
Spam was done mainly by bots and the system that pushed people to get upvotes to be the product of the day. I call it the "inflation" of upvotes. The more you have (those begged or delivered by bot accounts), the more priceless they are.
Well – I still believe this platform can improve many things and my hopes are it is doing that but it certainly went off track for a little while.
Luckily, they also took some feedback to heart and started making some changes – revising the Featured/All section + Featured banner after setting up the launch date. If that wasn’t true, we probably wouldn’t have seen these changes.
@busmark_w_nika Its not about usefulness. It's about feature parity. Like if you launch a AI website analyser now. Well sorry, but that has feature parity with 20+ similar launches over the last 2 years, and 1000s of similar products in the wild. that niche is over saturated. In that niche you can only get featured if you rise above that feature parity. Add something new. Do something different. "The differentiator". So make sure your 👉relevant to the times👈. That's your benchmark. The spam im talking about is that PH allowed stuff with feature parity to enter the platform. And then it was gamed to become nr1. The spam bots are still here, but they are irrelevant now, since you can't just fork a GitHub repo and game it to the top. That game stopped 12 months ago. The spambots pray on people who think ph hasn't changed. I guess they read outdated blog posts on how to perform well on PH.
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@sentry_co
There are several questions: What to build then? Everything was reinvented (like a wheel) and adding "another feature for the sack of differentiating the product" can defeat the purpose because another feature can make the product more complicated to use...
(And we can further ask – "Who can tell us, whether it is unique?"
"How many features would be okay and how many too much?"
"Should I ask people outside of the PH before the launch?"
"Should I ask people during the PH launch because I am expecting to have feedback from them?").
It feels like the PH is now for ready-made products but some people may take it as the platform for products that are about to be ready-made – that is for a longer discussion than for one post.
There is a golden mean in place – neither too many curated products nor too few...
If too few products were curated here, for several groups it could be a sign that something is not working, stalled growth, doubts (which have already appeared in our case)
Because people have started to perceive "not featured" as a kind of punishment the launch of a product can become unattractive. So it is also in the interest of the platform to be clearer in the rules and communicate with the community because people will go to other platforms – and this can have pros/cons for several parties – but as for products, also for platforms the market can regulate itself.
IntroJoy
> People bought my product because I was a product of the day.
True. No one would say that. But, may they go to know about the product because the product was POD?
Because, since the product was POD, it stayed on the top of the list, got more eyeballs, got covered in Newsletter probably, got scrapped by a lot of directories, got covered in many review blogs.
These are all the ripple effects of getting POD. No?
I know you have covered a few already in your desc.
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@ashitvora This can be the effect – top position on the ladder but many people think that the badge will bring them success. We tested that badge in creatives, run it as advertisement it didn't have a significant attention.
Also, when did you launch? Because launch in 2022 is different than 2024.
In between these years, there was a huge change in the amount of bots and people less trusted those "upvotes" – so it started being questionable whether product of the day is really product of the day. You know what I mean.
our team made a research and it seems you should not put your hope high and be conscious on time spent preparing and possible outcomes
Here is the post if you want to get a bit more details
https://mysignature.io/blog/prod...
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@olya_zabalkanska How big was the sample?
Animate AI
Hey Nika,
You’re absolutely right! The focus should always be on improving the product, and that’s exactly what we’re doing. We’ve put everything into making Animate AI the best it can be. And honestly, we're especially nervous about our first launch. 😅 It’s a big step for us, but we’re super excited to finally share it with the Product Hunt community!
We’ve tried something a little different with our product video, aiming to pull people in with a "Disneyland" kind of vibe. 🎢 We don’t just want to show we’re an AI video generator, but instead, we want to invite people into a whole new world—revolutionizing storytelling in a way that’s exciting and immersive! ✨
I’d love for you to take a look at the product video and let us know what you think. Feedback is everything as we continue refining the product! 💭
👉 Watch it here:
(Btw, Just realized that we are allowed to post links on this community section~)
Thanks for the awesome advice, and I really appreciate your thoughts! 🙏
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@helen9 Hey Helen, I am happy that you are trying to improve your final product. I watched the video and I like it.
I would also recommend sharing reactions and the product in use with the target group: Kids – there is no more honest approval than by the target group (in your case kids with their parents) – this is more general advice for the future marketing activities.
Another tip for the future marketing effort: Partnerhsip.
I know guys from Oscar stories: https://oscarstories.com/ who create books
– maybe some collaboration between you could make sense. Kids could create a script/book according to the full-length movie that could be made. :)
Another activity: Participating in animation short-movie/long-movie festivals.
Or you can create a competition (festival) for kids to create one as a side marketing activity. :)
Just a few ideas to start with. :)
Animate AI
@busmark_w_nika Hey Nika, Thank you so much for watching the video and for your kind words! it means a lot! 😊 We’ve worked so hard on this and super glad you liked it!
Your suggestions are fantastic, seriously. Partnering with Oscar Stories sounds amazing! I love the idea of combining storytelling with animation. Letting kids create scripts or books that could be turned into full-length movies? That’s such a fun and creative collaboration—I’ll definitely look into it! :)
We’ve actually invited some AI artists to try out Animate AI and create their own animation videos. Here is the one I like the most. Btw, Merry Christmas :)
But I never really thought about hosting a festival or competition for kids or parents to create their own animations! what a cool idea! We do have a video type that generates kids' bedtime stories, so that could be a perfect fit for something like that :)
Thanks again for the thoughtful advice—I really appreciate it! These ideas are gold. 🙌
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Animate AI
@busmark_w_nika Thanks so much, Nika! 😄 Our official alpha launch date is Tomorrow. (Dec 15, 2024) Today, we’ve actually opened up the alpha sign-up for the Product Hunt community! I’d love to hear any feedback or questions you have once you check it out. :)
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In case you are here to build the community, you can get some tips from here:
https://youtu.be/STa63l37qQ0
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BTW, I will be sharing some PRODUCTIVITY TOOLs in my Sunday's newsletter.
2 or 3 of them I found on the Product Hunt. 🙂
Subscribe if you want to get this edition in your inbox:
https://businessandmarketing.sub...
Definitely! Getting valuable feedback to continually improve your product and building relationships in the PH community are the real wins. The badge is just icing on the cake for that hard work and iteration.
@busmark_w_nika we plan to launch early next year :)