Ask HN: Our launch is trending on Product Hunt – now what? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Our launch is trending on Product Hunt – now what?

22 pointsneg230 comments

We launched our iOS Framework earlier this week (http://www.redbeard.io).

We're trending on the front page of Product Hunt. Wondering what we should do to help ensure we keep the momentum?

Well, for one you could try to get on HN to keep the buzz moving. Oh, wait, I see what you did there.

we're at no 2. no hope of getting any higher...we can't compete against an automated marijuana making machine no matter how good Redbeard is :)

Short answer: Everything.

Longer answer: you keep building something people need. You spend 100% of your time either acquiring users, talking to users, or building what users need.

You set one metric for the company and work towards that. As an early company, that is usually users. Then it is revenue.

That's really all there is.

If being on product hunt gets you users, that's awesome. If not, it's a waste of time.

If being on HN gets you users or feedback from potential users, that's awesome. Otherwise, it is a waste of time. (I'm going to download this and see if I can spin something up for https://romuluscrm.com, so you got at least 1!)

1) Build something people want. 2) Get it into the hands of those people. 3) Charge them money in proportion to the value you're providing. ... 879412309) IPO

awesome post, thanks for the detailed reply I'm still deciphering everything. Literally making notes in Evenote.

If you need anything at all, tech assistance etc. please feel free to email me: zahid [at] redbeard.io

I'll be using my twitter too from now on that's @zahid

Will do. I haven't written ObjC in years, but your site does a good job of getting me interested.

If you have questions about running a company, I'm chris [at] seneca.systems

Nothing you'll do now matters for the future of your product, not even your appearance on product hunt (which barely is read by your target audience anyway), so just continue with what you were doing before.

I second this, as the perception that PH traffic matters to the long-term success of a startup is a very toxic viewpoint that many naive entrepreneurs hold. (The content-less thought-pieces stating "How I Got #1 on Product Hunt" on Medium do not help)

Product Hunt in general is a negative externality on the startup ecosystem, but that's a topic for another day.

Take me for example. I downloaded your framework and will never look at it again.

lol....how can I possibly convince you to use it :)

In all seriousness thanks for the comments. They're giving the sense that Product Hunt won't make us overnight millionaires and we've got a hard task ahead of us

Try content marketing? Blog some focused pieces on native mobile dev in general and what sucks, then show how your product makes everyone's lives better and saves the day.

Set a schedule and post, that's the way people will see your name from time to time, and after seeing it for 10 or 20 or 50 times, might want to try. Get on their radar.

See Auth0's blog [1], even though they sell one-click auth, they have a lot of neat content on front-end frameworks and so on.

[1]: https://auth0.com/blog/

awesome, will really take this onboard.

Welcome to reality. Follow all responses that say to focus on customers (either users or revenue). Flash in the pan hype are blips on the radar for the marathon you are just now starting

congrats. But traffic from product hunt (et al) and news articles, etc is always temporary. So here in a bit it's going to die down, no matter what you do. You may or may NOT get users from it, and there's nothing you can do about that--a lot of times on these types of sites, people are just curious and move on to the next thing tomorrow.

Just remember that, and don't let it discourage you. Keep doing what you're doing and stick to your plan.

Also, product hunt, hn, news articles are not a substitute for a marketing plan. So if you haven't thought about how you're going to get users without them, it's a good time to start thinking about it. Traffic from PH, HN, news, etc should be thought of as a bonus--a nice thing to have.. your startup should not depend on it at all. (Edit: to expand on this.. traffic like PH is semi-random. While marketing is a process. You can't depend on semi-random events. But you can execute and refine a process.)

Hi rgbrenner. Co-founder of Redbeard here. I really appreciate and definitely agree with this comment. I have a great post saved from a few years ago by Alex of GrooveHQ which also mentions the same sentiment: http://onstartups.com/tabid/3339/bid/96361/Getting-Crunched-...

Since you are getting plenty of traffic - will getting more feedback help ? If so, can you make giving feedback easily accessible at home page ? So what should be a good question be ? eg:question we are better than say a competitor (fill the name?) because ?

If gaining more users is what you want - will adding a forkme at github help ?

If gaining more traction : add social buttons to spread the word about page ?

I saw this couple of days ago and was wondering how flexible this framework is? Will you be providing source code?

The source code is not available as it's a compiled framework however our plan is to soon launch a Marketplace of high quality end to end apps (think clones of Twitter/Instagram/Tinder etc) to give developers a boost when starting their projects. It's also a great way for new developers to learn iOS development.

That's an interesting idea. I was running a dev shop few years ago and this would've been useful.

Continue working on your product.

am coding as we speak...and I'm serious.

We're realising source code to one our apps as part of the marketing drive this one >

https://appsto.re/gb/ZiUPdb.i

Capture as many email addresses as you can and start a list so that you can continue to reach out to those that showed initial interest as you build the business.

Currently we show a popup for newsletter signup and to download the Redbeard framework you need to provide your name/email. Which we collect.

The download link is emailed out. Myself and co-founder debated the merits of this . He is of the mind, getting emails is important. I think getting people using the framework and lowering barriers to in order to do that is far more pressing. What would you suggest?

Capturing an email allows to build an ongoing connection. It's easier to sell if you have proven to be useful on the small scale (free articles & advice), than to expect people to buy something as fundamental as a UI framework right off.

You won't keep the momentum. Think of it as a burst of leads, similar to having a booth at a trade show.

do you (or anyone) know how the tail off it. Is it pretty much dead after coming off the front page for example?

Typically yes, but prior products can make their way into lists, where they'll traffic down the road. As for when traffic will die down, honestly, I'd say within a day or 2, based on how people use PH.

Write a follow up blog post

like a medium post detailing how we got on to Product Hunt?

which will be read by people hoping to get their product on PH... meaning they're even less likely to use your product.

Focus on your product.

Stream about it on Facebook live and retain as many genuine users you pick up as possible.

Throwing up some surveys while you have enough traffic to make them feasible is a good idea, too.

(As others have pointed out, improving the product is still #1, but it doesn't look like you were looking for advice about that side of things in this post)

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