Just because you have access to them, doesn’t mean they’re the people you want to reach. In a recent post on the Indie Hackers forum, someone shared the results of a recent pair of launches: Choosing whose attention you are trying to get really, really matters
Your job is to be clear about who you’re trying to reach, so clear that you can say the thing they identify as (or a problem they identify with) and they’d turn around in the crowded room of the internet. Unless you have tons of money to throw at advertising, PR, and sales, the more specific you can be with your messaging the better. But it’s not an excuse to be general in your messaging or your offering. Avoid creating those opportunities!īTW, if you’re thinking to yourself “well, my product could be used by lots of different audiences” that’s great. But you’re already past the first, biggest barrier.Įvery opportunity they have to ask the question “are they talking to me?” you run the risk of losing them entirely. Once they’re sure you’re talking to them? Now you have to keep their interest. Everyone’s attention is limited, and you have limited time to make it clear to a reader or viewer that you’re talking directly to them. On the internet, you’re shouting into a crowded room. While the % of people who turn around might be smaller than the people who turn around to a more generic term, they KNOW that you’re talking to them, with no question in their mind. “JAVASCRIPT PROGRAMMERS!” or “GRAPHIC DESIGNERS!” or “COPYWRITERS!” What if you tried yelling “MAKERS” or “HACKERS” or “CREATIVE PEOPLE”? True, some people might identify strongly with terms like these, but broad category terms are far less attention-grabbing than you need to cut through all of the other noise. But unless you’re at a convention for people who share the same name, this strategy won’t work in real life. If you shout “JOHN” or “NICOLE” into the room, odds are that basically 100% of the people with those names are likely to turn around. The only rule is that you can’t yell “FIRE!” or other implications of danger. Your goal in this experiment is to get and keep the most peoples’ attention with just one word/phrase. Imagine being in a crowded room with hundreds or thousands of people.
Just because you have access to them, doesn’t mean you can reach them. At their worst, they provide terrible false signals. Because these particular sites tends to be, at best, a distraction from real marketing efforts. And if you get lucky, you can end up with lots of traffic.Īll of that traffic and attention FEELS nice…but be wary of this kind of high. Yes, HackerNews and Product Hunt have sizable, click-happy audiences. The flip side is equally true: just because the upvoting masses don’t click, doesn’t mean your product is doomed to failure.Įven if you know this intellectually, it’s very easy and common for the results of a PH launch to trick your emotions into believing success (or failure) is already written. The truth is that just because your launch rises up the leaderboard doesn’t mean you have a success on your hands. Launching to a big audience can be exhilarating. Let’s take a closer look at why you probably shouldn’t ever launch on Product Hunt or Hacker News, and why you definitely shouldn’t count them as your first or only options. Well, in spite of their reputation among pop-startup and indie hacker scenes as “part of the journey” I’m here to tell you… don’t do it. When you are starting from scratch and you have no audience, launching your creations (products, apps, articles, podcasts, etc) on Product Hunt or Hacker News can feel like the best way, or the only way, to get attention and that initial bit of traction or feedback.
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