Lessons Learned From Vouch’s Product Hunt Launch

Last month, Vouch launched on Product Hunt for the first time.

Having seen the success SaaS products like Notion, GitHub, Hugo and RevOps had experienced on the platform, we knew this could be a great opportunity for us. 

The site also has a reputation for attracting marketers, product managers and developers. Just the kind of people we wanted to discover and feedback on our product and help us continue to build the best video collection tool on the market.

After a big push from the entire team, Vouch ranked in the top five products of the day, received some amazing, insightful feedback and saw a lift in both website traffic and sign ups. From our immersion in the platform, we also learned a lot along the way.

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What is Product Hunt?

Product Hunt the platform for discovering new products. Every day, a new set of products launch and have 24 hours to compete on a leaderboard, which is determined by the upvotes and comments of its tech-savvy community. All of the big SaaS players will have launched there at some point, often more than once.

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Lessons learned from our Product Hunt Launch

Launch dates matter

The Product Hunt community is most active on Wednesdays and Thursdays, so they have become two of the most popular, and competitive, days to launch. Use your goals to guide the date you go live. If you’re going for peak exposure and awareness building, Wednesdays and Thursdays are your best bet. If you’d rather have less competition in your bid for the number one spot, the beginning or end of the week could suit you best. Vouch launched on a Wednesday. 

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Give support and you shall receive 

The community on Product Hunt is incredibly positive. If you create and participate in discussions and share your feedback on other product launches, you can quickly build connections on the platform. If you’re a genuine and active member of the community, you will be rewarded with the same support when you launch. 

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It pays to consult a ‘Hunter’

It helps to have a great Product Hunt mentor. The platform has a lot of intricacies, and if it’s your first time launching on the platform, a ‘Hunter’ can provide much needed intel. Chris Messina hunted Vouch and offered us invaluable guidance in the run up to our launch. It was so helpful to have an external perspective.

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Prioritise your creative assets

You can upload videos and images to accompany the description of your product when you launch. Invest time in creating a clear demo video. You want the community to understand who you are, what you do and why you do it immediately. We were thrilled to see comments on the clarity of our demo video and believe it contributed to the success of our launch.

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There's no such thing as being too prepared

The more active you are in the community, the more you build your network, the better placed you will be on the day. Identify people who are qualified to support your launch. Let them know when you are going to launch so they’re ready to jump in and show you some support in those early hours. 

Momentum plays a huge part. When you lose it, it's a real effort to get it back, but when you have it, the upvotes fly in. Many people only look at the top of the board, so getting organized and securing your spot there early can really help. 

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 Divide and conquer

The Product Hunt launch can be a 24hr slog! The more you can share the load with your team, the better. Create a schedule so someone is available to respond to comments as soon as they are left, while the rest of your team are mobilising support. Originally we thought that the first few hours would set the tone and the leaderboard would stabilise. This wasn’t the case, so keep your calendars free!

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Was it worth it?

Our Product Hunt launch was a huge team effort, but we were thrilled to see the following results. 

• In 24 hours Vouch gained more than 700+ followers on Product Hunt, 4x reviews. We also received some great insights from the almost 300 comments or pieces of feedback that we received. 

• This performance earned us a primary placement in two Product Hunt newsletters, sent out to the 500k+ community.

• Vouch saw a 58% lift in website traffic over the 4 day period vs October 4-day average for the same time of the week.

• User sign-ups also increased by 380% (plus the likely halo effect in organic / direct sign ups)

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We were thrilled with the result of our Product Hunt launch and incredibly grateful for the support from our community. If you’re about to launch then you’ll also learn that watching your team, users and community pull together to make it a success is really exciting. 

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Connect with Steven on Product Hunt.

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Like to try Vouch?

Loved by companies like Canva, Nike, Cisco, Stryker, HubSpot, Amazon and more, tools like Vouch make leveraging video in your business remarkably easy.

Be sure to book a Vouch demo today and chat with a video content expert.

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