Seeding Parable on Product Hunt
Parable’s vision is to build a global community through beautifully crafted and creative posts. A Parable is designed to spark a conversation. As a fledgling startup, we are excited to share our baby product with the world. Parable is just three months old; we have so much to accomplish! That said, we are huge believers of building in public and eager to get feedback any chance we can get.
We were thrilled when Parable was picked up by Steven Sinofsky and posted to Product Hunt last week. Here are some of my observations from the whirlwind that followed.
We quickly saw a healthy uptick in our installs and account activation.
The influx of new users was an excellent opportunity to engage with an audience and learn from them. It was easy to interact with the Product Hunt community in order to get immediate and actionable feedback.
The community also asks tough critical questions but does so in a positive and constructive way. I find this crucial. I need to know the truth about how we can improve.
This was the most successful parable across all social channels. On LinkedIn it garnered 260 likes and 14 comments in just a day.
In the next few days we engaged with new users by emailing them directly. The new posts created a virtuous cycle which eventually led to a day of record downloads for Parable. All our key metrics; downloads, activated accounts and number of Parables posted skyrocketed.
Product Hunt has done a great job integrating with Twitter. It’s easy to tweet and share conversations about our product.
We learned that some folks liked Parable enough to pay for it!
We heard from multiple users that they would love to have it in their market. Currently Parable is only available in select English speaking markets.
We reached out to folks who up-voted Parable. Especially useful because it brought us more valuable feedback.
The best part of Product Hunt is tapping into its high quality user base. Thoughtful Parables set the tone and communicate quality. The community is composed of smart and savvy users.
If you are a founder of a brand new startup and building a product I urge you to get involved with the Product Hunt community and get your product posted. It will help you gather important early feedback and help ensure that you’re driving in the right direction for your business.
Have thoughts on this post? Tweet to me at @nale and let’s talk!
