Hey Product Hunters!

After months of hard work, late nights, and endless cups of coffee, we re thrilled to announce that Lovon is launching on Product Hunt tomorrow!

Today I received a question about proper launch preparation:

Nika, how long should this take us?

And I didn t have a clear answer.

After our first launch on Product Hunt, our team spent a little over a month upgrading the product. There were major changes to the UI and several new features added, so the process took time from discussions and redesigning the interface to testing, fixing bugs, and updating AI prompts.

We re also a very small team, so everyone had to push themselves to give 200%. Time and resources are limited, and at the same time, we also had to work on securing funding for the next six months to keep the team running and continue developing the app.

As a measure of the impact of vibe coding and the need to focus on positioning, narrative, and marketing and distribution, I noticed that that 610 products were submitted to the Product Hunt leaderboard today, but only 16 were featured which is less than 3%.

The previous high was just over 500 products in December.

Two years ago, Lovon was made for couples who were already in a relationship.

We offered packs of psychology-based questions, quizzes, and mini-games. They helped partners talk about hard topics like trust, jealousy, and intimacy.

Most products obsess over user acquisition.

More traffic. Better conversion rates.

Turns out, growth often comes from something much simpler.

Moments. Retention. Care.

We spent a year building Lovon with a PhD psychologist with 40+ years of clinical experience. What makes it different:

Therapeutic, not agreeable (like gpt). Evidence-based frameworks (CBT, Emotion-Focused Therapy) designed to gently challenge unhealthy thinking - not reinforce it.

I used to think the hardest part of building a product was building the product.

Turns out, creating superfans is harder.

The real challenge is getting people to love your product:

With the advent of clawdbots, it's as if we've all lost our inhibitions and "put our lives completely in their hands."

I'm all for delegating work, but not giving them too much personal/sensitive stuff to handle.

Our team is planning to launch a new version of our product on Product Hunt next week, after a period of optimization and improvements. As we get closer to launch day, I realize there s a lot to prepare, and I m curious about how other teams usually approach this process.

So far, here s what we ve been focusing on:

• Most importantly, making sure the product works well and delivers real value

• Continuous testing to ensure performance and stability

• Designing clean and clear product screenshots

• Preparing a summary of what s been updated, fixed, or optimized

• Writing launch content (tagline, description, first comment, etc.)

• Maintaining good health and a stable mindset for the launch

• Expanding our network and connecting with other makers

After four long years of grinding, building, fundraising, and hiring, we decided to pivot. I wanted to write down my thought process and timeline because I wish I d seen more honest pivot stories when we were stuck. Not just we pivoted and everything was instantly great but the real version where we kept trying to make the original idea work for way too long because we already put so much into it.

I went through YC S20 (the first COVID batch) as a solo founder working on @Basedash. After YC, I did what you re supposed to do. I talked to users. I built product. I did founder-led sales. I hired a great team. It felt like progress because I was constantly busy and the product kept getting better.

Today, the productivity domain in tech is very well developed - there are tools for almost any need!

But at the same time, there s always a feeling that there might be something else, something better. All the time.

What I like about this space is that once people start using tools like Miro, Notion, Trello, ClickUp, etc., they tend to keep testing new things and experimenting with different tools.

Six months ago, I was stuck in a relationship that looked good on paper.

My partner was loving and kind but my feelings were gone.

I didn t want to hurt her.
But staying was hurting me.

Six months ago, I was stuck in a relationship that looked good on paper.

My partner was loving and kind but my feelings were gone.

I didn t want to hurt her.
But staying was hurting me.

Hey Product Hunt

I m Anton, co-founder of Lovon - an AI therapist with a human voice to help you talk it out and feel better.

Hey Product Hunt

I m Anton, co-founder of Lovon - an AI therapist with a human voice to help you talk it out and feel better.

We re usually very good at creating to-do lists for work.
But what about everything outside of work?

I ve started turning my personal habits into a checklist to build discipline and make these habits non-negotiable over time.

Here s mine:

Over the past few days, I ve been trying to understand what helped the most successful launches stand out.

In general, here s what I noticed they tend to share:

• Their Product Hunt page had at least 500 followers.

• The product was in overall good condition (I mean, already had some level of reputation, really good marketing).

• Many were hunted by well-established, well-known hunters on the platform.

• Every comment received a response.

• The visuals were strong there was almost always a video or demo featured at the beginning of the carousel.

New AI models pop up every week. Some developer tools like @Cursor, @Zed, and @Kilo Code let you choose between different models, while more opinionated products like @Amp and @Tonkotsu default to 1 model.

Curious what the community recommends for coding tasks? Any preferences?