STARBOX PLUGINOur First Tech Product Launch on

Product Hunt:

[ C A S E S T U D Y ]

ABOUT US

At the Squirrly Company we build and

promote products that help people

become Better Marketers.

One such product, is one of our tech

products. It's called Starbox - the

Author Box for Humans.

Today, we're sharing with you the

story of how we launched it on

Product Hunt and what it did for our

team.

OUR STORY

Getting on Product Hunt is the new

most wanted thing by any marketer,

developer, or business man. You can

also call it the Big Dream. But, as you

already know, not all dreams come

true.

To get launched can be easy, but to

stay there, to be on the front page,

that is the challenging part.

STARBOX PLUGIN

If you haven’t heard of the

plugin until now, you can try

out the free version today.

http://starbox.squirrly.co/

Starbox is an author bio box which

you can display at the beginning or

the end of your articles. It’s that

part where you share details about

the author with your readers.

Recently we had one of our tech products

launched on Product Hunt.

THE BIG LAUNCH

ENCOUNTERED

SOME

OBSTACLES

OBSTACLES

MADE US

STRONGER

TAUGHT US

VALUABLE

LESSONS

STARBOX PLUGINPrelaunch Preparation

01

02

03

THE HUNTER

They are the persons who will add

your product to the platform.

RESEARCH

Before the event, you need to do a

lot of investigating.

CREATE AND ENGAGE

Creating the needed materials for

the Launch day.

THE HUNTER

Tip: It's very important to

search for your hunter(s) at

least a few weeks in advance.

Always choose 3 hunters. Start

a conversation with each one of

them.

If your hunter is a big name in the PH universe, your product will pop-up in all their follower's notifications. With the most popular PH hunters, you'll get most of their follower's upvotes.

WE STARTED TALKING WITH VIOLETA ALMOST ONE MONTH

IN ADVANCE.

RESEARCH

What would be the best Day and Hour to launch

People which upvoted similar products and their contact details

Tag-lines

Product Images on Product Hunt

Platform specific behavior

The main things we focused on were:

CREATE AND ENGAGE

Creating the Product Hunt Kit

Writing messages to help promote the campaign on social

media

Creating the banner for the product site

Social media images

Template emails

Materials to help our email list get familiar with product hunt.

The main things we focused on were:

We started to engage all the

people that upvoted similar

products on PH. We also

reached out to brand

ambassadors, marketing

partners, friends, and family.

From when we started the

research phase, we also kept

our Product Hunt Accounts

active. Meaning we upvoted

products each day, tweeted

about them and shared them

with our following.

STARBOX PLUGINThe Launch Day of Our Tech

Product

WE ENCOUNTERED OUR FIRST BIG PROBLEM JUST 18 HOURS

BEFORE THE LAUNCH!

Violeta, our hunter, got sick, and she couldn’t hunt

any products for some time.

Although we found three hunters, we only kept in

touch with Violeta. And this was a big mistake.

HERE WAS OUR SOLUTION:One of Florin’s old online friends would be our hunter.

Franco Varriano swept in and saved the day!

STARBOX PLUGINGathering the Troops and

Briefing on the Strategy

We gathered all

the team in the

same office and

informed them of

the latest details.

12 A.M. SAN FRANCISCO

We checked again

that we had all the

documents we

needed.

Tip: Having a Product Hunter

kit can save a lot of time.

2 A.M. SAN FRANCISCO

Tip: Make sure your video

or the most suggestive

picture is the first one

Name of the product

URL to the product site

A short tag-line

Platforms it works on

A few categories the

product fits in

Screenshots with the tech

product

We had some great pictures.

Well, at least they seemed

pretty awesome to us.

However, as it turned out,

the images weren’t as clear

to everyone.

Franco was very punctual

and at 3 a.m. sharp he

hunted our Starbox

Plugin on Product Hunt.

3 A.M. SAN FRANCISCO

Each of us had to contact

a list of users, brand

ambassadors and other

partners on the launch

day.

TIMING IS EVERYTHINGMost Product Hunt users are from the

San Francisco area

The founders of the platform are from

SF. This is why you should focus on

San Francisco first rather than

targeting other parts of the globe.

The best hour for you and your team

The second aspect to take into

account is finding an hour that works

for your time zone as well. In our case,

3 a.m. seemed to be a perfect

time. We were in the middle of the

day (in the Eastern Europe time zone).

THE NAME OF YOUR PRODUCT

We were 2 minutes in, and

we already got a big

question.

The hunter had to change the

name of the product into

“Starbox Plugin.”

It seemed that “Starbox, the

author box” was confusing

people in the PH community.

Tip: Always make the title of your product very clear for everyone.

STARBOX PLUGINTHE FIRST HOUR - THE MOST

IMPORTANT COUNT

It would be great if you

could gather somewhere

between 20-40 upvotes.

4 A.M. SAN FRANCISCO

We had 29, and we got

the “Trending Right Now”

badge.

TAKE-AWAYSGetting the first upvotes shouldn’t be

so hard. If you have a big team, you

already have your first upvotes.

Don’t let all your team upvote your

product at the same time.

More importantly, don’t upvote from

the same I.P. It can come up as spam

or automated. Try to use your phone

network (3G, 4G), not the WiFi.

Friends and family may be glad to

offer their help in the form of an

upvote. Also, don’t exclude business

partners or fellow organizations. They

might be willing to vote your product

just because they trust your business.

STARBOX PLUGINPromoting and Over

Promoting

Tip: Never, ever over-use

your Product Hunt link.

5 A.M. SAN FRANCISCO

When you get launched on PH,

you have no time to waste. You

have to hurry to get as many

upvotes as possible by the end

of the day.

This approach works well with:

Clients using the tech

product for free

Beta-Testers

People who already

preordered your product

When we got hunted, we

got overexcited and we

shared our PH link

everywhere. I mean,

literally everywhere!

You can’t ask people directly to upvote you. But you can encourage them to do it by asking them to share

their support for your product or to express their love for it.

AND THIS HURT US TWICE.

1. WE HAD A WORD FROM

BEN, THE COMMUNITY

LEAD OF PH

2. WE NEVER GOT UP IN

THEIR TOPS

WE HAD A WORD FROM BEN, THE COMMUNITY LEAD OF PH

We made a list of possible people who could upvote us. We engaged

with them few weeks in advance. On the big day, we literary invaded

them with our PH link. We sent it to everyone. It seemed to be the

easiest and surest way.

WE NEVER GOT UP IN THEIR TOPS

When you launch your product, you don’t want the people you bring

to the platform to upvote other products as well. Especially those

which were launched on the same day.

You are fighting for the first place, or at least to end up in the top five

for that day.

01

02

03

DON’T OVER-SHARE YOUR PH

LINK.

FIND ALTERNATIVE URLS TO

SHARE, LIKE: PH homepage,

PH topic,

PH keyword page.

USE EMAIL TO CONTACT

YOUR POSSIBLE UPVOTES

It might take more time for them to answer

and express their vote, but it’s safer.

04

05

06

USE LINK SHORTENING SERVICES

AND NOT HASHTAGS ON TWITTER

CREATE A LANDING PAGE THAT

REDIRECTS TO YOUR TECH

PRODUCT PH PAGE.

Promote the landing page with the product

presentation.

MESSAGE FREE USERS AND BETA

TESTERS WITHIN THE ACTUAL

PRODUCT.

Anyone using your product that day can find

out your product is featured on Product Hunt.

You want to catch the eye of the person

you’ve already engaged with. A mention is all

you need.

STARBOX PLUGINFocusing on one

communication channel

TIP: NEVER ASSUME ONE CHANNEL FOR COMMUNICATION IS ENOUGH.All the people with whom we’ve been

talking about our product were on

Twitter.

We never tried to get people’s emails,

or Facebook profiles or other social

media account. We thought that

Twitter was enough.

WHAT DID WE DO NEXT? For those 2 hours, we didn’t

share our PH link anywhere,

and we still got some upvotes.

We were happy, but something

went wrong. We never reached

the PH top.

Upvotes came, comments

came, but we were not

climbing at all. That was the

moment when we knew we’d

never be in the top 5 of that

day.

We’ve waited. For almost 2 hours, we’ve

just waited.

STARBOX PLUGINReaching Our Goals

8 A.M. SAN FRANCISCO Ok, we got comfort with the idea that

we are not going to finish in the top 5.

But we weren’t giving up.

Our goal was to get 100 upvotes.

So, we started working to accomplish

our aim.

WHY?It is because of our product.

That doesn’t mean that Starbox

Plugin doesn’t deserve more

upvotes. It means that it is a

very niche product. Starbox is

for people with WordPress

blogs. There are two niche

categories: bloggers, writers,

marketers and WordPress

users.

Both of which are not entirely

the main topic of the platform.

WordPress is a category on PH,

and bloggers, writers,

marketers are a sub-category

of WordPress.

Realistic Goals for Product Hunt

Users

CHANGES IN STRATEGY

We started reaching out to our

contacts, friends of our friends

and people who wrote about

us. We started searching for

their email address or other

social media accounts.

Even KittyBot by Product Hunt

sends Starbox Plugin to Slack

teams. It was quite nice to see

that KittyBot recommended our

product.

STARBOX PLUGINThe End of the Day

1:40 P.M. SAN FRANCISCOIn less than 12 hours after we got launched on Product Hunt, we reached 100

upvotes. We were so happy. Glad that we’ve accomplished our goal and

that PH shared our success.

I WILL SAY IT AGAIN: DON’T SHARE YOUR PH LINK TOO OFTEN.

As you can see, even though we

had more upvotes and

comments than other products,

we never climbed. That’s

because of our mistakes.

Our presumption is that we got

flagged or banned for upvotes

that came from the direct link.

They showed those upvotes,

just that they didn’t count them

for the top.

STARBOX PLUGINNext Day and Final Results

12 A.M. SAN FRANCISCO NEXT DAYAfter we had reached 100 upvotes, we

didn’t do anything for Starbox Plugin

to climb in PH top. It was almost

midnight for us, and after all, we

couldn’t do much more.

But even so, the next day came with

big news. We ended our launch day

with 119 upvotes. On the 22nd place

(still on the home page) from 72

products which were launched during

the same day.

AND THAT’S NOT ALL

We reached the top 5 for WordPress

topic. In the end, we did it. We

reached top 5.

It doesn’t matter so much that it

wasn’t in the overall PH top. It matters

more that we reached top 5 in a

target field for our product.

STARBOX PLUGINTakeaways

01

02

03

FIND A WELL-KNOWN HUNTER

FOR YOUR PRODUCT.

The hunter's following might have a

significant influence on the outcome of

your products launch

SEARCH FOR 3 HUNTERS AND

STAY IN TOUCH WITH ALL OF

THEM AT LEAST FEW WEEKS

IN ADVANCE.

RESEARCH YOUR STRATEGY.

Find out the best day of the week and

the best hour when more people can see

your product and hopefully upvote it.

04

05

06

ESTABLISH LISTS WITH

POSSIBLE UPVOTERS.

Find out all their contact details and

interact with them a few weeks in

advance.

You can even try A/B testing the tag-lines

and maybe even the images.

CREATE THE KIT IN ADVANCE

TO THE BIG DAY.

SELECT YOUR TIME FOR THE

LAUNCH IN RELATION TO THE

SAN FRANCISCO TIME ZONE.

07

08

09

MAKE SURE YOUR PRODUCT

IMAGES ARE CLEAR.

Even consider adding a video

presentation.

Convince your team, family, and friends

to be the first voters.

UPVOTES IN THE FIRST-HOUR

MATTER A LOT.

HAVE AN EASY TO

UNDERSTAND TITLE FOR

YOUR PRODUCT.

10

11

12

NEVER OVER-USE YOUR

PRODUCT HUNT LINK.

Find inventive ways to reach more people

through several different channels.

DON'T FOCUS ONLY ON ONE

CHANNEL OF COMMUNICATION.

SET REALISTIC GOALS.

Understand how many already existing

users of PH would be interested in your

product.

STARBOX PLUGINConclusion

DON’T REPEAT OUR MISTAKES. In the end, the Starbox Plugin Launch was a lesson for each of us. Everyone

from the team learned something new, especially our new colleagues. For

them, it was more interesting as this launch was their first product launch.

WE HAVE MORE STORIES TO SHARE.This was a powerful event that

made us as a team stronger.

We've had other challenges as well

while marketing our products.

Learn from more of our stories on:

DM Superstars.com