The "right" time to launch on ProductHunt?

Hi everyone! I recently built and launched wheresmystuff.co.

It was a project initially born out of frustration and quarantine boredom :) But I'm now trying to see if it has legs beyond being just a side project. I'm testing for traction via a variety of channels -- by sharing here and other sites like IndieHackers, startupbase.io, Reddit, social media, etc.

My first goal is to see if I can get to 50 users tracking at least 2 packages, and 25 users I do not know personally. This is my current "line in the sand" to decide if I should invest more time and money into this idea. I'm still quite a ways from hitting that goal, but I'm hopeful!

I want to put this on ProductHunt since that would get a lot of eyes on it, but I'm hesitant. Should I wait until after I see more initial traction, before launching this on PH? Or, should I launch on PH to get initial traction? Anyone have thoughts on this chicken-and-egg problem?

It depends on what is your goal for this project. If you are mostly looking for exposure and you are not planning on monetizing, I think you don't have to take the launch so seriously.

https://www.indiehackers.com/post/how-to-launch-on-product-hunt-multiple-times-2467b35af9

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Ethan Teng 🌉 Author

Yeah, that's a good point. I don't really expect to make any money from this project; my goal was mainly to build and launch something "for practice" so to speak. Thanks for the article link!

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Carl Poppa 🛸

Just launch and learn :) You can also always launch again when you have a v2.0

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Ethan Teng 🌉 Author

Thanks! Yeah, I think I will. I don't know why I'm so nervous about it! :)

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Carl Poppa 🛸

@ethanteng I'd be nervous too, and that's okay! Proves you're not a robot 🤖

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James Kenny

It can depend if you find the right channels and get your marketing right to build traction and your audience. Do you even need Product hunt?

You could launch on Product hunt anyway and see what happens, you might get a spike in traffic but it's not likely going to result in users so you kind of have to prepare for that.

I think the best advice I have, is to try and find the channels for your product, I'm not even sure where the people with lost packages hang out. Or it might be a chance to go after the online retailers the small indie people and see if they would use the platform for tracking their packages and then give your link to their customers to track their order.

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Ethan Teng 🌉 Author

That's super helpful, thanks! I hadn't thought about reaching out to indie sellers and leveraging them as a growth loop. Great idea!

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James Kenny

@ethanteng Best of luck with it!

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Level recommend launching at 12 pm Eastern, i think

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Ethan Teng 🌉 Author

Ah, good to know! Any particular day of the week?

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