Smash Notes
Launched alertsforbtc.com on Product Hunt
In this episode I discuss why I launched on Product Hunt, What I learned about launching on the platform, and how it went. Link to launch: https://www.producthunt.com/posts/alertsforbtc-com Support improving the podcast on Patreon Support improving the podcast on Buy Me A Coffee Follow the podcast's Twitter for updates on episodes…
Notes
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Alex, on Building an Indie Business, says Sunday is the best day to launch on Product Hunt because the top spot costs fewer upvotes. For the week he launched alertsforbtc.com, he counted about 26 upvotes to reach the top on Sunday and 27 on Monday. Raw votes are not the whole story. He saw a product on a Tuesday or Wednesday sitting at the top with 19 upvotes, and he assumes influential people in the Product Hunt community pushed it. He says an upvote from Ryan Hoover would have put alertsforbtc.com on top even if his own count stayed small.
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The Product Hunt advice Alex repeats on Building an Indie Business is to launch at 12:00 a.m. Pacific Time, so the post has the full day to collect votes and so people in the Bay Area, where he thinks most of the users are, can see it. He does not love the rule. If everyone posts at midnight, the 12:00 a.m. posts bury each other, and not everyone in the Bay Area is awake then. He posted alertsforbtc.com at 12:15 a.m. and wonders whether 7:00 a.m., when people are opening the site, would be seen by more of them.
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Alex, on Building an Indie Business, says to put emoji in a Product Hunt tagline so the post is more than plain text, then tell a network — Twitter, forums, an email list — that you are on Product Hunt and link the post. Do not ask for upvotes. If Product Hunt sees you begging, he says, they can change the ranking so you cannot reach the top. alertsforbtc.com got two upvotes the day he launched and two the next day. He had mentioned it only in the Maker's Kitchen Slack and on Twitter, on purpose. A maker can launch about every six months, and this Bitcoin alert site was the no-risk practice run before his podcast.
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Ask people for upvotes. The people at Product Hunt do not like this. They will make your product less visible if they catch you asking for upvotes. Instead guide people towards your post by letting people know you've launched on Product Hunt.