Today we unfold all the behind-the-scenes of our Product Hunt Launch Journey, from day one until the Launch Day on November 17th.
Our long journey to Product Hunt
As few can probably imagine, this bumpy ride did not start just a few days ago… The intention to launch was set at least one year ago, but at the time we did not feel as prepared as we wanted to be, to compete with all the various tech products that there are.
The team started crafting and improving some of the aspects we wanted to reform while keeping a close eye on our road map and the step-by-step achievements we still need on our Publer’s journey.
We had reached 100K users on Publer’s platform back at the time. It was time to set the tone in our color palette, on the look of our superhero, the logo, and all our communications. Bringing a new era for our brand, meant to involve all of our employees in giving Publer a beautiful facelift. Rebranding was also one of the main reasons why we decided to postpone the PH launch date the first time.
New times and needs require new features and innovations. We knew that we could improve “Team Collaborations” to cover all the new market’s demands and this is why during these months of preparations we carefully crafted and introduced “Workspaces“. In addition to internal team dynamics, we’re developing new Workspace functionalities and features for all our clients. But this is another story…
Although our platform is easily accessible from any device as it is highly responsive we still had a personal challenge to face: Create a Dedicated App. This is why developing a well-designed Publer app for all our mobile users became one of our numerous milestones to achieve before feeling ready for the big day.
Around April we started crafting an in-house idea of an exciting and attractive promo video that we could use to showcase in gross the platform on the launch day. After a lot of research trial and error, we found an agency that would support us during the after months with complete realization, animation, and sound.
An Intensive Preparation Month
Finally a few weeks before the launch each department was engaging in Product Hunt-related and specifically dedicated tasks. The marketing department with its requirements came up with new tasks for everybody.
We gathered all our expertise and our minds to build a dedicated Product Hunt Landing Page for all the subscribers that would visit us there. Of course, we also handed them special coupons. (We’re still doing so if you’re on PH)
This meant starting to spend more hours on longer calls, overseeing every detail, and helping each other out to craft the most impeccable digital creations, such as specific pop-ups, landing pages, posts, etc. We are usually working remotely so even though we do bi-weekly retrospectives, this period was a great time to catch up with all the departments, even with the part-timers, on a daily basis.
This Product Hunt journey has certainly pushed us to be more active on social media, with specific posts, but also to prepare specific and customized emails. We can’t say that we didn’t enjoy the process!
Launch Day | Did we really need a Hunter?
The great day came, on November 17th.
We were all ready! Even the cat in the office was ready. Some didn’t even sleep fixing and making sure that everything was perfect.
So did we really need a Hunter? The short answer is “No”. No one needs a hunter to upload their product. But this was our first launch and we did all of the things we thought we need to avoid any unpleasant surprises. That morning, the first early hours found our marketer and Publer’s CEO discussing with David Roberts, founder of ReVerb on an important call, discussing launching details together, prior to the long-awaited moment.
Bumps on the Road
During the long-awaited launch, we encountered some difficulties. Difficulties that would hurt deeply our rank for the day. Difficulties that we out of our control. On the first (three to four) hours Publer didn’t appear on the daily featured listing. The reason behind this it’s still a mystery to us, as the Product Hunt algorithms can not be shared widely. At least that was what we got as an official answer.
However, we knew we had the most popular product of the day as soon as we noticed we were trending in Product Hunt, and that lasted all day long.
Throughout the day there were a noticeable number of products that although they had a considerably small engagement in the comments, started to rank firsts on the daily list. This activity continued, until a few hours before the closure, causing us quite an impediment, as we didn’t get the visibility that we deserved.
There were a couple of product launchers who tried to fool the algorithm and were tightly holding the first and second place, but that did not last until closure, as they got punished for the fake engagement.
All in all, with all these adversities and quite a bumpy launch, we got to pride ourselves with number four on the Product Hunt listing. In all honesty, with all the upvotes and the comments we got, we were hoping to rank at least in the second place as “Product of the Day”. But as mentioned above we cannot know how the algorithm works and it is fair to remain secretive.
We can only say that we are very grateful to all our subscribers and our special community for being there and supporting us on this important day.
Of course, we got many upvotes and comments also from new landers on the Product Hunt Page, asking pretty specific questions, and helping us this way showcase more from our platform.
So at the end of this ride, we can only say ✨ THANK YOU ✨ to all of the people involved and to all our supporters.
Vjola Canka
