Mobile App Launch Checklist | Hacker News Reader

Mobile App Launch Checklist

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148 pointsmada29918 comments

"How can you get featured on Product Hunt? "

Honest question, I've never followed or cared about PH. It's that big of a deal to be featured there?

I'm not sure if someone has mentioned this but not everyone on product hunt is created equal.

More than 80% of the stuff you see on product hunt (on it's home page) is directly placed there by influencers (that have bypassed upvotes and comments to get there).

So if you are a creator and submit your product to product hunt, you are severely disadvantaged - it's much better if either (form best to worst case):

1. You know an influencer and he/she submits it to the featured list.

2. An influencer organically submits it to the featured list.

3. An submitter (who's not related to you) submits it.

4. You submit it (either by emailing them about it, or by submitting it yourself).

I'm actually working on a side project that would make Product Hunt a lot more transparent (who are core influencers, which product types succeed, etc.)

We were 'Hunted' for our App (Hucnhapp) on PH this weekend. We were also hunted a few months ago for our iOS Framework (Redbeard). Both times it was by an influencer that was able to get it featured onto the homepage. Even though we were featured on a weekend both times it still led to thousands of visitors to our site (Approximately 7K in the case of Redbeard). Apparently weekdays leads to an order of magnitude greater. It really can be a great way to seed early traction. Getting featured can also mean you're picked up by various other blogs and publications as it does lend some credibility with the tech blogs. If you're looking to reach out to some influencers here's a great site that ranks them: https://www.yvoschaap.com/producthunt/

Thank you for the detailed explanation. Would love to test your product whenever is ready.

Sounds like digg.

Some Medium thought pieces claim so, but other Medium thought pieces claim from a traffic perspective, it is an order of magnitude below Hacker News.

It is a more productive use of product development to improve the product then figure out how to game Product Hunt since you will not be able to compete with people who buy sponsored Twitter ads for their PH page. (Yes, this happens!)

From what I understand about the PH algorithm, votes for a product that directly come from the link are not valued as much as votes that are organic (either from the homepage, if you search for the product, find it in a collection etc.)

Of course, there is a "workaround" where people post on public forums "my product was featured on the Front Page of Product Hunt!" with a link to the front page, and the implication is clear. Whenever I call them out as attempting to beat the algorithm, it usually starts a flame war. ("It's hustle!" / "Everyone is doing it!")

I mentioned the above comment because spending on ads (which have links to the direct product on product hunt) would not do too much good (PH algorithm seems to take vote count, vote origin, time of vote and time density of votes into accounts).

That said, one of the startups I interned at, had a massive internal doc (and tools) on how exactly to game product hunt (which I believe was extremely effective) - The startup ran out of business and is no longer around, which is why I was trying to recreate that document + tool.

I had an app featured on Product Hunt and it led to about 100 downloads or so. I don't follow it actively and I think it is slowly fading as time goes on. You can only download so many apps each day before you tap out

Use the Lastest iOS/Android Features

Researching the feature list is easier than making the app more useful. It's easier than cutting the features to the core essentials. It's easier to talk about how the app incorporates the latest features than user metrics.

Mostly, it's easier than talking to users. It smells like pretend work.

I think the value in this point is that the Android and iOS app stores are more likely to highlight apps using new features (for the homepage or whatever).

To me, a strategy that depends on the app store highlighting the app is pretty much just hoping to pick a winning lottery number.

Looks detailed. But if you are someone doing an App all by yourself it looks scary. At the end of the day, a lot depends on if you have built something that the users cannot refuse I guess.

I think that's somewhat fair - but not totally true. Getting featured and getting some initial traction is really important - otherwise no one can find you...

>Use the Lastest iOS/Android Features

>Apple and Google want to show off the latest features in iOS and Android, so incorporating these into your app will make sure you have the best chance of getting featured.

I think it's not fair not included Windows here. Windows 10 also have excellent features.

https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/windows

It's a Mobile App Launch Checklist. He didn't included Linux or macOS either.

I know Microsoft was trying to get into phones, but their UWP platform is about as major a mobile OS as Tizen and WebOS.

Windows has a 2.5% mobile market share. If you're JUST launching an app you will not focus on Windows. You'll be happy you got both iOS and Android to work.

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