Lessons from a “failed” Product Hunt launch

HelpKit unfortunately "failed" on Product Hunt yesterday, not ranking top 5, despite having the best community support I could have asked for! Here are my thoughts on the launch, the good, the bad and top 5 lessons learned. Including stats, images and more.

First, let's start with the "bad" 👎

HelpKit didn't manage to get into the top 5, ending up just one spot behind at #6. Given the extra mid/longterm exposure a top 5 product gets, I am kind of displeased by that fact to be really honest with you.

Now, let's move to the good parts 👍

I have easily the best friends in the entire maker community. I'm incredibly thankful for every comment, RT, cheer or upvote! Building in public is quite literally changing my life and I never thought I'll be able to make so many amazing connections with it.

I had absolutely no idea that for seemingly a handful of people, I am considered to be a "big inspiration" to them. This truly warms my heart and extremely motivates me to push even more in the future.

I also found out that my personal newsletter has close to 100 subscribers, so I really feel pressured to start writing more, which is a good sign!

If you want to join the newsletter check the subscription box at the end of this post 📧

Traffic, Signups and Conversion

Let's move on to the most important part: Traffic, Signups and Conversion. Overall, I am quite happy with these results: 📊 1200 Unique Visitors 👥 25 Free Trial Signups 💰 1 Immediate Subscription Conversion (Pro Tier Annually → $720)

The Launch Tweet

Lastly, let's take a look at the launch tweet stats. Shall we?

In total we got…

👀 27.000 Impressions 🖱 300 Link Clicks 😺 ~130 New Followers Link to launch tweet 👇

Dominik Sobe (ツ,ツ) on Twitter: "HelpKit is live on Product Hunt! 🥳HelpKit is a no-code tool that turns your Notion pages into a hosted professional knowledge base.Check it out here 👇https://t.co/oqDtZ5vJCbYour support would mean the world to me 😻 pic.twitter.com/ZErfntybEn / Twitter"

HelpKit is live on Product Hunt! 🥳HelpKit is a no-code tool that turns your Notion pages into a hosted professional knowledge base.Check it out here 👇https://t.co/oqDtZ5vJCbYour support would mean the world to me 😻 pic.twitter.com/ZErfntybEn

https://twitter.com/sobedominik/status/1562696647028899842

Here are my top 5 lessons learned from this launch

→ Competition can be extremely high on your launch day. You never know. → The launch day is exhausting, no matter how you frame it. → There seems to be more voting/comment fraud going on than I thought.

→ A hunter is not necessary. → Try to not put too much weight on the result of your launch. There'll always be a net-positive. For me it was to see the countless customer comments and reading how happy they are with the product. These testimonials are super valuable.

As you can see, there’s always something to win out of a launch, even when you don’t end up in the top 5. While I am certainly a bit disappointed (I want this badgeeeee 😉), I realized that it’s not so bad after-all.

Good luck with your next launch! Maybe the launch gods be with you.