How we launched on Product Hunt
Four weeks ago we launched Steps, an app helping you beat social anxiety with small challenges.
»Let’s introduce you to Steps« is what we said on Product Hunt. It feels surreal looking back and a lot has happened — so we would like to bundle our thoughts and experiences and share the story of launching Steps with you.
Product Hunt? 🤔
Until two weeks before launch, we hadn't even considered to launch Steps on Product Hunt. We didn’t see it as a big deal, because we didn’t know much about it. We saw it as a neat thing you do at some point down the road.
It wasn’t until our friend Carl Martin had a very successful launch on Product Hunt with his app Ping, that we realised there might be more to it than we thought and that Product Hunt might be important for Steps as well.
Product Hunt! 😏
So we decided to launch Steps on Product Hunt. We quickly realised that it's not just about uploading screenshots. Things like informing your network and timing in addition to the way you actually present your product are things you need to take into account. Research and preparation are key here. And there is a ton of preparation work to do.
Suddenly Product Hunt seemed like a mighty castle, ruled and fought over by the kings and queens of Silicon Valley. We seeked help and luckily Daniel helped us understand how Product Hunt works and made it much less overwhelming and scary. He also wrote a playbook in which he reveals his advice about successfully launching on Product Hunt.
Launching anxiety
While the practical side of launching on Product Hunt is one thing, there is another side to it — the launching anxiety. The feeling before presenting something to the world that means so much to you.
We both were anxious about how people would react to an app that claims to help them overcome social anxiety. Earlier we had run several tests, experiments and also started a public beta with 15o users. But this time it was at a far bigger scale.
February 21st 2017 🚀
Tuesday the 21st of February was the day we launched Steps on Product Hunt. It took us a solid week of preparation and now Steps was ready to go live.
We are very happy to have had Michael Flarup as our Hunter. Thank you Michael! We still owe you a beer 😉
09:00 It’s midnight in California, meaning a new day on Product Hunt starts. The 'Popular' list on the main page is wiped clean, ready for new products to be launched. Now we wait half an hour for any big company like Google or Facebook launching a product. It’s very common for these to take over the first spot in the popular list.
09:17 Our hunter Michael reports »On position«.
09:29 We tell Michael, we’re ready to go live.
09:30 Michael hunts Steps on Product Hunt and people can start commenting and upvoting.
09:38 We start shouting on social media 📣
10:59 Steps gets the second place in the “Popular” section on the front page.
11:50 #1 in Tech 🎉
18:45 We’re ending our day with 500 upvotes and two beers.
09:00 the following day 953 upvotes. #1 in Tech of the day.
Aftermath
A week after we were featured by Apple on the App Store. First in Scandinavia and later in the US. This has driven an overwhelming amount of downloads but — even better — a lot of feedback from users, which we’re capturing at the moment.
Numbers 🤓
- 1.541 upvotes on Product Hunt (March 20th 2017)
- 1.310 downloads on launch day (February 21st 2017)
- 53.800 downloads in total (March 20th 2017)
- 78.852 saved challenges (March 20th 2017)
- 15.685 completed challenges (March 20th 2017)
Next steps
CONTENT Questions we get asked frequently are »When will there be more Steps?« or »I wished there was a pack for x!«. Based on this, our most extensive next step will be creating new and more elaborate content. Together with people who have the expertise in specific areas of mental health we plan to create focused challenge packs.
COMMUNITY We’d like Steps to become social and give you the possibility to share your experiences with other people on Steps. You will hear about our ideas and plans soon, so stay tuned.
As always we’re eager to hear your thoughts on the product, mission, anything really. Get in touch at hello@stepsapp.xyz!
