The Product Hunt launch for my new product was a rollercoaster ride.
Here’s my story on launching 16x Prompt, the ups and downs, and the lessons learned along the way.
Pre-Launch
16x Prompt came from a need to simplify generating coding prompts for ChatGPT. I wrote more about the need to streamline the process in my post on ChatGPT for Coding Tasks: Best Practices, but it is essentially a desktop app that generates coding prompts for developers by adding source code context and formatting instructions into the prompt.
Days before the launch, I was busy polishing and adding more user-requested features into 16x Prompt, getting the product ready for the big day.
However, I didn’t go all out to build the anticipation for the launch. I wanted to keep it low-key and see how it would fare organically. In hindsight, building some pre-launch buzz could have helped in getting more traction.
Launch Day (12 March)
The launch kicked off at 12:01 am PDT on 12 March. I quickly shared 16x Prompt on LinkedIn, hoping for some traction. However, the response was lukewarm.
By day’s end, we had only 22 upvotes and 21 visitors from Product Hunt, still a few votes short of making it to the front page.
I made peace with the fact that the launch might not be as successful as I hoped, and called it a day.
Surprise Day (13 March)
By 13 March 11 am, 16x Prompt had just 30 upvotes and was not on the front page.
I took a curious look at other projects and noticed some projects with fewer upvotes were getting on the front page and being featured.
Thinking “what’s the worst that can happen”? I decided to contact Product Hunt support to ask about it.
I also posted about the launch on LinkedIn and discussed it with fellow indie hackers on Telegram.
From the Telegram replies, I learned that not all upvotes are equal. The weight of each upvote depend on factors like the user’s activity on Product Hunt, including login streaks and other interactions. Understanding how the upvote system worked was an interesting takeaway.
Then everything changed at 5 pm.
Product Hunt support replied and told me that they decided to relaunch my product!
“What?”
I could not believe it. So I checked the launch page. This is where I saw the product was indeed in an active launch again.
What’s really great is that the upvotes from yesterday were carried over, and we started the day with 30 upvotes! It wasn’t surprising that we quickly got featured on the homepage.
The good news continues. 16x Prompt’s core offerings also resonated with the visitors, so we were growing in organic upvotes.
By day’s end, 16x Prompt was on the homepage with 101 upvotes and brought in 100 visitors to the website, not in the realm of top 10, but a significant improvement from the previous day.
Overall, it was a wild day for me, and I could not have expected the turn of events that happened in a million years. I had a really good sleep that night.
Post-Launch (14 March - 15 March)
Officially featured on 14 March with a Day Rank of 14, 16x Prompt got a lot of attention. It was quickly indexed by sites like Toolify.ai and Aitoolnet, and drawing 135 website visitors from Product Hunt.
The next day, a mention in the Superpower Daily newsletter spiked our traffic to 1,000 visitors.
Yet, the high traffic barely moved our download numbers. This was an indication that the conversion rate from the Superpower Daily newsletter was not particularly good, probably something to do with the target audience of the newsletter.
Reflections and Insights
Post-launch, I looked at the analytics to see how we did after the initial traffic died down. Around 45% of our traffic was direct, with the rest spread across Reddit, Google Ads, and Product Hunt and other sources.
Interestingly, most the conversions came from Reddit, highlighting the importance of diversifying traffic sources.
Understanding the traffic sources and user behavior is crucial for planning the next step of the marketing efforts. For now, SEO and Reddit seem to be the most promising channels.
The whole ride with 16x Prompt was a real eye-opener. The unexpected relaunch by Product Hunt was a curveball that turned things around for us. It showed me that sometimes, you have to take the initiative and reach out for help to make things happen.
The launch also threw light on a hard truth: even with a good number of visitors, downloads might not always follow suit. It was a lesson in the unpredictable nature of conversion rates and the reminder that getting eyes on your product doesn’t always mean getting users.
Most importantly, I learned the critical need to diversify marketing channels. Relying solely on Product Hunt for visibility wasn’t enough. We needed a mix of strategies to sustain interest and drive engagement across different platforms.
In the end, launching 16x Prompt wasn’t just about putting a new product out there. It was a journey packed with lessons on resilience, market dynamics, and the art of making the most out of unexpected opportunities.
Check out 16x Prompt, 16x Prompt on Product Hunt, and let me know your thoughts on the launch and the product. I’d love to hear your feedback and insights!