Scopey's Product Hunt Launch

After several months of testing and refining the beta version of Scopey, we launched our MVP on Product Hunt on the 30th of July.

Many of our connections will already know this because my co-founder Jenna Farrell and I shouted about it from the rooftops. Thank you to everyone who supported, including those who created an account purely to support Scopey. The result was 24 hours on the front page of Product Hunt, ending the day ranked 6th out of 34. More on that later.

Since then, I've had a few people reach out asking for tips on putting together a successful Product Hunt launch. Here’s our experience.

What is Product Hunt?

Product Hunt is a platform where creators of mobile apps, websites, hardware projects, and tech innovations share their work with the community of tech enthusiasts and early adopters keen to try new innovations. You can browse thousands of products to discover new technology, engage in discussions, and most importantly, launch your product – competing for votes to win titles such as '1st of the day', '1st of the week', and '1st of the month'.

Given the platform’s nature, especially the launch feature, the core audience on Product Hunt is other technology creators. If this is your target audience, then Product Hunt is a fantastic way to engage with that community. Scopey's target audience includes professional services businesses and software development agencies, so it was likely we might connect with some of our audience on Product Hunt.

After spending several months actively using the platform to understand it better, I entered our launch with low expectations of genuine engagement. The way launches attract votes means that the leaderboard numbers could be entirely manufactured (more on that in the last section, 'A Numbers Game').

Launch Day ??

The 24-hour clock starts at 12:01 am PST, which is 8:01 am in Ireland (Jenna) and 5:01 pm in Melbourne, Australia (me).

As soon as we were live, votes and comments started flooding in. Apparently, responding to every comment helps, so that’s what we did.

Pro tip: The Product Hunt mobile app is more user friendly when keeping on top of all the comments.

We reached out to our network and messaged everyone we’d previously voted for, asking for their support. Jenna and I did everything we could to ensure a strong start. It paid off; we jumped into third place, then dropped to fourth before clawing our way back to third.

A strong start is important because you need to maintain a high position on the leaderboard to be featured on 'page 1'. This is where you’re more likely to be discovered by the broader Product Hunt audience.

We managed to maintain our position on page 1 but ended up finishing 6th.

Thirty minutes before our time was up, we made a final push to get people to vote for us and overtake the product in 5th place. At one point, we knocked them down, but they had a few votes left in the tank and managed to squeeze back past us in the final minutes. Ultimately, placing 5th or 6th doesn’t make a huge difference, but Jenna and I like to win.

Was Launching on Product Hunt Worth It? ??

As previously mentioned, some of our target audience is likely on Product Hunt, but it’s not a perfect fit. And at the end of the day, if people don’t use Scopey after a Product Hunt launch, the benefit is minimal.

But we were pleased to see that the launch generated buzz and we’ve had interest from tech newsletters and podcasts. We also got a handful of signups. This was great because it allowed us to gather behavioural data on users who hadn’t been nurtured through our beta program. Understanding how people use a product when they’ve only just discovered it that day helps iron out any kinks in the user experience.

It’s just another step on the journey towards product-market fit.

A Numbers Game – Getting People to Vote! ???

On the day, Jenna and I reached out to everyone in our network to drum up votes. We’d been teasing our launch for the past month via social media and email, and now we just needed them to take action. But there was a lot of other work behind the scenes that went into our launch.

I spent the last few months voting for other products, growing my connections within Product Hunt, and linking with those people on LinkedIn. It’s an 'I support you, you support me' numbers game.

We also decided to launch with the help of a 'hunter'. While anyone can launch ('or hunt') a product on the platform, there are some people within the community who have achieved 'influencer' status due to the number of products they’ve hunted. We created Scopey's profile and all associated content, then Scopey was officially launched by our hunter. This helps tap into their community on Product Hunt, and they also distribute news of our launch via other community newsletters, as well as WhatsApp groups where you can share your launch and ask for support.

It’s an open secret within the product hunt community that not all votes are genuine, hence my scepticism about whether we would find genuine engagement within the platform. (In the days following our launch the Product Hunt community lit up with speculation when a launch attracted over 6,000 votes – 10x their nearest competitor).

Should You Launch on Product Hunt? Will We Do It Again?

If there is an overlap between your audience and Product Hunt's audience, then yes – I’d say it’s worth launching there. And if your primary audience is technology creators, then it’s worth doing whatever you can to reach position #1.

Will Scopey launch there again? Maybe. Follow us and find out.