I recently saw a marketer with 10k+ followers launch and finish 6th with 348 upvotes. They followed a proper pre-launch and post-launch plan, did everything right, and still the outcome felt unpredictable.

Now I m launching @Curatora next week.

I m not a marketer. I have a little over 1k followers. Of course, asking for support helps. But I also keep hearing that a large part of the Product Hunt community shows up mainly for their own launch, then goes quiet until the next one.

That makes me wonder: how much of success here is strategy, and how much is timing and network effect?

1. You need to be equal partners

Tim (my cofounder and co-CEO) and I started with quite asymmetric experience.

I had previously been a VP of sales, responsible for sales, support, and account management. Tim was an insanely talented, 23-year-old engineer, and was much earlier in his career I m nearly 10 years older.