Sidebird's launch: ~1.8k visitors + learnings
Sidebird's launch: ~1.8k visitors + learnings
#2 product of the day, f*cking bots and so much love ❤️
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:
A strong start
F*cking bots
So much love!
Let’s dive in…
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:
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:
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
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!
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
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:
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!
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.
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!
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
Sidebird's launch: ~1.8k visitors + learnings
Loving these posts! Keep on doing amazing work!
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)