28 May 2022
The other day I launched a product on PH, StoreBot. Since I launched it, I haven't done any marketing, promotions or anything at all. I'm not going to tell you that I did that because I wanted to do an experiment and then write this blog post. I just didn't have time or plans to invest any more effort or time into this product.
It's just something I did while learning python, and because my wife needed another medium that she could use to collect payments for her digital products. So I decided to make a product out of it.
It's not to say, that if I had some clients, I would've just charged and abandoned them. No. I would've absolutely done my best to support them and their businesses. I might've even done custom features on their request. Just for them.
But since I had none, the product is just out there on its own. 😅
So the main point of this post is that Product Hunt does nothing for your marketing.
I'm exaggerating of course. But what I mean is that you need to do more marking, sales and try to promote your product on all relevant channels out there if you want it to succeed.
Right after I launched on PH, I received one message from a potential customer on Telegram. They showed their interest, asked about how things work and said they'd get back to me. They never did, but I assume that's because i) the setup of my product was too complicated, and/or ii) they didn't have the budget for it.
I never followed up. That's another thing you should do when someone shows interest in your product. Follow up with them and ask whether they're still interested and why not if not.
Let me show you Google Analytics stats.
On the day of launch, Oct, 7th, I got 98 visits. And then 16-21 visits per day on Oct 11 down to 3-5 a day afterwards.
Geography-wise, it's the USA, because PH is mostly US oriented, I'd assume. And the UK, because I'm live here and I have a lot of connections who might've clicked the link to check it out when I announced it on social media.
Russia is 3rd because 1) Telegram is a very Russia oriented product in itself, and 2) because I also have a lot of friends/connections from there. Today, I get on average 12 hits a month with 0-2 visits a day.
And that may only be because I have a link to StoreBot in my pinned tweet.
No leads, no anything.
Today I treat it as a portfolio item and as one of the pieces of my wife's business digital ecosystem. She uses it for her sales.
Otherwise, as I said, I don't think I'm going to invest any more time or money into it unless I find a profitable niche or reason for it.