How we launched Timeful on Product Hunt
Several months ago, we started planning our launch strategy to introduce our new, Intelligent Time Assistant to the world. Many smart people, quite a few with PhDs, got together to map out what we’d say and to whom.
All the big names got covered — Fast Company, TechCrunch, Lifehacker, Re/code, New York Times. The list went on and on. However, we wanted to make sure to reach out to the early adopters, the influencers and the burgeoning community of people trying to stay on the pulse of “the next big thing.”
This is why Product Hunt made sense. And we couldn’t have been happier with the reach, sentiment & insightful conversations we got from the people on Product Hunt (PH) during our launch day.
Let me break down what happened on launch day:
Ben Lang, founder of Mapped in Israel, listed us on the Product Hunt site.
Early in the morning, one of the Product “Hunters” found that we were live and created an entry for us on the site.
We didn’t reach out to this individual, but were glad someone was paying attention! This started the clock running for us, and we knew we’d have to get involved in the discussion.
Erik at Product Hunt reached out with a simple message — “Timeful is trending right now on product hunt!” @ 7:21 AM (PST).
No sooner than we were listed, did the votes and comments start coming in. Damn you International & East Coast people and your early head-start!
I jumped on to introduce myself and start conversing with people on PH.
With all the other “craziness” happening around us, such as major media outlets releasing their stories, our inboxes getting flooded with feedback and our Twitter account blowing up, I logged into PH and started conversations with people there.
As the Social Media maven at Timeful, I’d switch back and forth constantly between PH, Twitter & Facebook to make sure people were understanding the purpose of our application (“to make time for the things that matter”) and that they’d have a great experience with Timeful on Day 1.
We’re getting to #1 …
It soon became my mission to get Timeful to the #1 spot on PH for the day.
Why you may ask?
Well, it’s simple: Placement & Reach to Audience. If you are #1 on PH, you end up on the top of the page.
It’s like a big game of “king-of-the-hill.” And for whatever impressions PH is getting, you’re the first thing everyone sees.
The science has already been proven by Google that the first thing you see is the most likely thing you’ll click on. PH was now the key place early tech adopters were going to see “what’s new.” So we knew we needed to be the newest & best, at least for 24 hours.
In addition, getting into the Top 5 for the day would get you listed in the Product Hunt email blast. Again, we didn’t know how many people this reached, but we knew it was an influential group, and being #1 would, again, put us as the first thing people would see when they opened the email.
Oh, it’s on!
As a Marketing guy, your worst nightmare is that someone else launches a product on the same day, in your space, and has a bigger audience/platform to speak from.
And wouldn’t you know it, that’s exactly what happened: Wunderlist 3 was released on the same day.
Now, we admire and respect these guys for the product and company they’ve built. But I’ll be damned if we’re going to lose to them on PH!
So, now the competition was on.
I started tweeting and posting on Facebook for our fans to start up-voting us on PH, and it was working. We were jostling for the lead throughout the day.
In a cruel twist of fate, a friend’s company, Forage, was ALSO launching on that day. And Emily LaFave, Chief Creative Officer @ Forage, reached out to me to say she was gunning for us too!
It was now a 3-horse race. It became more than just publicity for our product, it was a full-fledged competition for who could “win the day.”
The conversation gets interesting — early users, influencers & other companies intermix
Ryan Hoover, lead on PH, had made one of the first comments about us, giving us a “I’ll try-it-and-see” kind of review. He had already talked briefly about us on the PH podcast, so we knew he was hoping we succeeded in our mission.
Then Robert Scoble, noted tech pundit, commented on Ryan’s post. He had produced a video interview with our CEO, Jacob Bank, and wanted to give us some love as well.
Immediately, comments flowed in from a wide variety of folks, all interested to see how we tackled the time management problem differently than other apps on the market.
To our surprise, even some representatives from other, productivity-oriented companies posted their feedback. The community was coming together to discuss the real issues of making a great productivity product, and it was a very uplifting and productive discussion.
The day ended with a flourish of good press from a ton of media outlets, a lot of great comments on social media, and some amazing results from our efforts on PH.
We ended the day in the #2 spot on PH
The day ended well, and we came in second. At least I can claim a victory over Emily. ;) And it secured us a prime spot on the website and in the email blast the next day.
The conversation led to more engaged fans
Reaching out to the influencers, the competition and other new users made for a great feedback loop, and something we’ll leverage in the future as we’re trying to build a high-quality product and a solid brand.
PH Drove more than 5% of our web traffic on Day 1
PH was a very significant part of the traffic to our website on Day 1 and continued to be a source of good traffic through the launch weekend. We were amazed to see PH up there with the “big boys” like Fast Company, The Next Web, TechCrunch and other, major media outlets.
While we cannot connect PH directly to registrations or downloads, it’s clear the people coming from PH were very high-quality, potential users.
These people are likely to be strong influencers on us, as we look to improve our product(s) over time, and evangelists to the broader community of people looking to make better use of their time.
We were thankful to have a forum like Product Hunt to talk about Timeful, and get unfiltered, honest feedback from a group of savvy consumers.
We welcome your feedback too, so please download Timeful, http://timeful.com/download, and let us know what you think!
Brian Frank @bfrank
Timeful, VP Product & Marketing
http://timeful.com @timefulapp
