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Sidebird's launch: ~1.8k visitors + learnings

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Sidebird's launch: ~1.8k visitors + learnings

#2 product of the day, f*cking bots and so much love ❤️

Lilian ッ
Feb 19, 2023
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Sidebird's launch: ~1.8k visitors + learnings

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Hi there ✌️, it’s Lilian here!

Yesterday I launched Sidebird on Product Hunt

It got 400 votes and #2 product of the day!

Some highlights:

  1. A strong start

  2. F*cking bots

  3. So much love!

Let’s dive in…

Launch results: ~1.8k visits and 72 trial sign-ups

Pre-launch strategy

It was my first time.

In facts, I was procrastinating the hell out of this launch ( for way too long 😅). I had to force myself…

On February 8 I tweeted this so I couldn’t go back any longer:

Twitter avatar for @_justlilian
Lilian ッ @_justlilian
The countdown has started 🙀
Image
3:02 PM ∙ Feb 8, 2023
213Likes4Retweets

Let’s be honest: I didn’t have any clear strategy back then.

Here’s what I did:

I started actively searching for ressources on Product Hunt launches and spent a few days just glancing through them.

I found some gems along the way, like Dan Kulkov’s guide and Luca Restagno’s course. Check them out!

The plan was simple:

  • Tweet about the launch

  • Tweet about the launch

  • Don’t forget some tweets to promote the launch 😅

Flawless, huh?

Well… in the meantime I also prepared the website a bit to avoid unnecessary server requests and focused on the launch’s content itself:

Simplified the value proposition to make it more concrete

A strong start 💪

Ready? Set? …

The day came. I had prepared everything the day before so all I needed to do was to press the push button.

I woke up early, went out for some running, and heat up some (a bunch of) coffee for the day ☕️.

At 9 am I pushed the launch tweet and it was on!

After just 3 hours, we were #1 product of the day with twice the upvotes of the second

Image
3 hours in…

Crazy. 🤯


F*cking bots

At this point, I was mostly just answering everyone and enjoying the moment. But then…

While I was chatting in a twitter space with some friends: I noticed the einstein bros were catching-up! Although only their upvotes were growing, (🤖) they took the lead.

I wasn’t going to give up so quickly!

Twitter avatar for @_justlilian
Lilian ッ @_justlilian
Can you help me compete against bots? 😏
Image
4:05 PM ∙ Feb 18, 2023
84Likes9Retweets

I got so much support after this tweet ❤️

I also started sending a bunch of dms to people asking for help. But as I didn’t want to be completely spammy, I kept sending them manually so it didn’t change much.

Although ~50% of them actually upvoted!

But fate is ironic — around 5pm twitter went down completely for 1h so sidebird wasn’t even working anymore. Fortunately, it came back 🤌


Still a success 🏆

Results speak by themselves:
🔺 401 upvotes
🌐 ~1.8k website visits
🖱 71 new trials

Website traffic on the launch day.

For the sales part, I’ll share the numbers in 7 days on twitter!


What I learned

Here are 4 actionable advice you can steal for your own launch:

  1. The launch day matters. I chose Saturday because it was “convenient“ but I made a mistake. The traffic was much lower than other days of the week, so I’d definitely suggest doing some research on that!

  2. Have a precise plan. My mood kind of dropped during the day. And that affected the results for sure. I think my preparation wasn’t completely trash as I got many people involved in the launch day, but I should’ve planned the day itself better.

  3. Be prepared to fail. I know this may sound pessimistic, but the lower the expectations, the least disappointed you are. Learn from them and you won!

  4. Use bots. Okay that one is a troll. Don’t do that. Or at least don’t tell anyone 😏


That’s it for now…

Hope you enjoyed this issue.

If you like it, please feel free to share it with your twitter friends (even the ones using light mode 🙃)

I’m always happy to hear your thoughts. Hit me up on Twitter @_justlilian and let's connect.

See you for the next issue!

— Lilian

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Sidebird's launch: ~1.8k visitors + learnings

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Sidebird's launch: ~1.8k visitors + learnings

justlilian.substack.com
CodeGuided
Jun 1Liked by Lilian ッ

Loving these posts! Keep on doing amazing work!

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1 reply by Lilian ッ
Jason Leow
Writes Jason's indie hacker journey
Feb 20Liked by Lilian ッ

It’s a great first launch, congrats Lilian! 🚀

Didn’t know about Twitter downtime for 1h - dang that Murphy’s Law!

Yeah agree Saturday might have less traffic, but also less competitive I feel.. so it might have balanced out in the end? (Less traffic but trade off for near 1st place)

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