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Nika

What I Learned Relaunching My App on Product Hunt After 3 Years

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First of all, I want to thank you for voting for us in yesterday's launch - you still can, the week is not over. 👉 HERE

Second thing, I summarised some things that I realised, reflected on, and maybe should have known sooner:

  1. There is still a large, strong supporting community in the first place.

    ( @marclou , who is widely known and has 263k followers on X, showed us this yesterday – none of us had a chance)

  2. Asking for help in DMs still works.

  3. Contributing to Reddit didn't help that much.

  4. People in WA groups are supportive; they even respond by saying that they voted.

  5. It would definitely help if we had an external hunter (and not just me)

  6. It would help if we launched on Weekend – not because of the badge, but because of the character/category – productivity solutions are doing better at that time.

What surprised me?

In general, after the launch, at least 7 people contacted me offering to help boost the launch. Prices ranged from $40 to $450 and up. They even got into the private email of the founder, who is quite sensitive about sharing that one.

What pleasantly surprised me was the help from @konrad_sx – thank you so much for your proactive approach.

We ended up 6th on that day, and I hugely appreciate that because the competition was strong and the week was pretty busy.

Thank you so much, guys!

Just out of curiosity:

Do you try your best to position yourself after the launch day as well? (for the launch of the week, month, etc.)

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Vlad Stan

how do you know this is helpful? It would definitely help if we had an external hunter (and not just me)

Nika

@vladstan Because there would be included his/her followers, not only mine.

Aleksandar Blazhev

@vladstan  @busmark_w_nika You’re not right here, Nika! In practice, if your hunter is a different person and you’re just the maker, the maker doesn’t get a notification.

So if I were your hunter and you were the maker, only my followers would receive a notification. Yours wouldn’t.

In your case, you actually had both a large and an active follower base. There are many accounts on the platform with 10–15k followers, but those accounts are from 2014. So I wouldn’t count this as a mistake.

Nika

@vladstan  @byalexai If this is really like that, I apologise for the confusion, Vlad. One guy tho wrote to me on LinkedIn that he didn't receive any notification about our launch despite following me.

Vlad Stan

@byalexai  @busmark_w_nika no worries, glad is clear now. Aleks, thanks for sharing

Konrad S.

Thanks for mentioning me! Of the 26 people I had contacted on LI (all of which had asked me to support their launches previously, but most of which I didn't know otherwise), 14 answered that they had upvoted it, that's >50%.

I think you have been a bit too cautious with asking for support. I know you didn't want to contact too many people on LI to not get banned. But you could e.g. have asked a few friends to help contacting people. I also see 4 other people on the minimalist phone team, did they not help?

Nika

@konrad_sx Wow, you have a better conversion rate than me :D thank you so much, you are quite good at sales :D

I did mostly solo hahaha :D

Chris Messina

Can you say more about this?

  1. Contributing to Reddit didn't help that much.

I'm not too surprised, but I'm curious what you did, which subreddits you contributed to, and what you were hoping to gain.

Also — these paid launch boosters are a scourge; did you respond to them? If so, what did you tell them?

Nika

@chrismessina It was just a few regular Product Hunt subreddits, I had them in the list of "sources" where possibly people can have some exposure. But to be honest, I didn't expect miracles from those subreddits, especially since really good ones on Reddit don't have the space for this kind of post.

Regarding the paid boosters, I politely declined them.

Mohsin Ali ✪

@chrismessina  @busmark_w_nika you're too polite 😂

Nika

@chrismessina  @mohsinproduct There is no need to make an extraeffort to be harsh :D

Viktoriia

Congrats on 6th place! that's solid, especially against strong competition) Really appreciate you sharing these insights.

Do you think the community support was mainly from existing users, or did you see new people discovering Minimalist Phone through the launch?


Thanks for being transparent. Most people only share wins, not the process.

Nika

@virtualviki I think it was a mix of community and then discovering. When you want to be visible for new people, you need to get initial support within 4 hours.

It is like this process:
– The internal PH team must feature you.
– You need to get upvotes predominantly from your loyal community within 4 hours
– After 4 hours, there is a ranking, and if you are visible enough, other people can discover you.

Viktoriia

@busmark_w_nika Super helpful breakdown, thank you! The 4-hour window is good to know - I'm preparing for my first PH launch and was wondering how the ranking actually works.

So, loyal community first, get featured, then discovery kicks in. Makes sense why building an audience before launch matters so much.

Noted for when SelfOS is ready)

Nika

@virtualviki In my opinion, you need to have a really good product (innovative, unique, etc.) so the internal team decides to feature it – this makes the biggest difference.

Anneliese Niebauer

curious how did you determine that the weekend would be better for your category? what's the best data source to grok this?

Nika

@anneliese I think that in general, weekends are more dedicated to health/productivity tools. Maybe the concept fits better. People are more in chill :)

Anneliese Niebauer

@busmark_w_nika okay i see just generally when in the week will someone likely be thinking about the problem you solve?

Nika

@anneliese It is difficult to answer this. Maybe users would potentially questioning their productivity on Monday when they need to focus on work for the whole week ahead. Just it is my assumption.

Sasha Dikan

Thanks for the post - it is helpful) I am launching soon and now trying to understand what to do and how to prepare ib the best possible way.

Nika

@sasha_dikan You are welcome. When is your launch day? :)

Sasha Dikan

@busmark_w_nika thanks, it's 11th February))

Nika

@sasha_dikan Feel free to remind in dms on LI :)

gbenga

Yes but in a lightweight way. Small updates, replying to comments, and sharing learnings seem to help more than a big push. After launch day, consistency matters more than intensity. Congrats on #6 in a tough week 👏

Nika

@gbenga__ Thank you! :) I think that it is a great part of marketing (at least for creating more content) :D

Jake

Wow! I haven't had any outreach at all and I would love to engage an audience more about my launch. Any advice on the launch itself?

Nika

@slingshot_money Start creating a list of potential upvoters. That's the one answer for this! :D When is your launch? :)

Jake

@busmark_w_nika  my launch was this morning and I felt like all I could do was watch it slip by. This is advice I wish I had!

I hadn't thought of pre-networking here before launch. Great lesson learned on this one.

Nika

@slingshot_money You can still relaunch with a major update. + You can reach out to people beforehand to follow your PH page (it is usually a button on the right side in the right bar).

Valeriia Kuna

This is very helpful post-launch breakdown, Nika, thanks!

I’m currently in the pre-launch phase and your point about Reddit really resonated with me — I’ve been feeling quite demoted lately after having a few relevant posts removed by strict moderatos. Seeing that it wasn't a major needle-mover for you makes me think about shifting my energy elsewhere.

I’m curious about the strategy side — why did you choose a weekday launch over the weekend? Same question regarding the external hunter: You mentioned that having one would help, so why didn't you launch with one?

And also, how were you able to track which channels (like WA vs. Reddit) were actually bringing in the votes? Was it mostly through direct feedback in DMs or were you using specific tracking links?

Nika

@valeriia_kuna Definititely, Reddit wasn't worth, do not recommend. :D I had a convo with some people under the post, but I think it didn't help to launch in general.

Regarding:
Weekday – I wanted more people to see the product because of the higher traffic

Hunter – to be honest, I didn't know who would fit the best with the concept of minimalism/productivity

Usually, people who follow me + I asked for an upvote. So it was pretty obvious that DMs help.

Valeriia Kuna

@busmark_w_nika 
I see. And if you posted in WhatsApp groups, how did you track the effectiveness? Was it only by answers from users saying they supported the launch, or is there some magic trick? :D

Nika

@valeriia_kuna Yes, they messaged me back that they upvoted :D

Leo Jiang

Really appreciate you sharing this level of transparency, especially around the role of community and the post-launch dynamics. Curious, in hindsight, what drove the most impact: personal DMs, public posts, or your existing community showing up?

Nika

@leo_aj for me it was a mix: Existing community + DMs :) But DMs are stronger because are more personal :)

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