🚀TBBL #8: How Sveta ranked her MakerBox products in top 3 of ProductHunt

The launch strategies and secrets from the maker behind 5+ successful launches

Hey launch pilots 👋

This is Nithin and Karthik from LaunchPedia, How is your week going?

This week we interviewed Sveta Bay, co-founder of MakerBox on her Product Hunt launch strategies and got tons of product hunt hacks for you to make your next launch a big bang 🚀

Before we get into it, here are some exciting updates for you to catch up.

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🎁 We Built GiftIndy this Week

GiftIndy is a platform where you can find cool gifts for your indie hacker friends who supported your journey and express your gratitude this Christmas.

Choose from over 200+ handpicked Indie Gifts for Makers, Designers & Online Creators.

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💡 Resources Spotlight

1. IndieInsiders - Want to get an inside look into some of the best indie hackers? Every Thursday, learn about key takeaways, wins, losses, and life lessons from 1 indie hacker.

2. Sathya's Newsletter - A weekly newsletter that is curated from the best tweets and resources on visual thinking & learning, no coding and a creative journey!

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⚡ A quick intro about Sveta

Sveta, the co-founder of MakerBox, launches one new product every month as a part of MakerBox marketing strategy. Her products have ranked Top 3 in Product Hunt multiple times and they’ve made $6,000 from Product Hunt launches.

Some of her products:

1. MakerBox Workbook

2. MakerBox Frameworks

3. MakerBox Tools

4. Sponsor This Newsletter

Let’s unlock all her launch strategies and secrets

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🎤 Interview

The Big Bang journey 🚌

Hi Sveta, could you tell us a little bit about yourself and Why you started MakerBox?

After working for four years as a Project Manager at several companies, I finally got burnt out and wanted to try something new.

So Dan & I decided to build a side project while still working in our 9-5 Job thinking “ If we can earn $1 from MakerBox, let’s quit our job & make money online”

Makerbox Tools managed to generate the first dollar online. And that was the moment when we decided to pursue full-time building products.

The Big Bang reason 🤔

Why did you choose Product Hunt as the main traffic channel for MakerBox? Why not SEO or Social Media?

The answer is quite obvious - quick results. With SEO and Social media, getting the first dollar can take between 3 to 6 months. Whereas with Product Hunt, you can get that in a month.

The Big Bang shipping strategy 🚢

You launch one product a month on Product Hunt, how do you build and ship that fast? How do you create buzz for a launch?

I think there are 3 key points

1. We already have knowledge of the niche where we build products

2. Building products is our full-time activity. Before the launch, we work 10-12 hours daily.

3. We have a clear understanding of our target audience and their needs.

You got a hunter to hunt your products in the early days. How did having a hunter help your launch?

Having a Hunter helps a lot when you launch your first product. Especially if you don’t have any audience on Product Hunt.

How it helps:

1. Quick social proof and

2. The hunter’s audience will get a notification when you launch

The Big Bang strategy 🧠

When do you start planning for a product launch? and What is your launch strategy?

We start planning a month ahead of our product launch and finalise the launch day. To be honest, there’s no common launch strategy, since we always try something new.

Here is how our plan looks:

1. Validate the idea with a pre-launch

2. Open early bird sales

3. Create the content on Twitter around the launch and build the product

4. Giveaway of a free product part on Twitter

5. Prepare content for the launch (visuals, description, comments)

6. Launch!

What are your goals when launching on Product Hunt?

The target is always to get the #1 Product of the Day, since it’s hard to predict sales.

You mentioned that your Makerbox Workbook launch didn’t perform as expected. Did you find any reasons behind it?

The main mistake we did with that launch is we decided to launch on a competitive day (Thursday). Big companies that have a huge audience launch between Tuesday - Thursday.

The Big Bang traffic source ⛽

What are your main traffic sources for a Product Hunt launch?

Our main traffic sources are:

1. Twitter

2. Email list

3. FB, Discord and Slack groups. (These are less efficient)

The Big Bang pricing strategy 💰

Do you offer any special discounts on launch day for PH members? Does it help increase your sales?

Yeah, we do give discounts on Product Hunt launch day. And we increase our prices after the launch.

The Big Bang tools ⚒️

Can you share the tool stack you use for the Product Hunt launch?

1. Figma - visuals

2. Notion - work organisation

3. Gumroad - To Sell Products

4. Canva - Gifs

5. Typedream / Webflow - landing pages

6. Tally forms - forms

You’re extremely active on product Hunt discussions. How has it helped with your PH launches?

It grows my Product Hunt audience (followers will get notified about all my launches). Also, I try to plug our products or articles into the discussions. This generates traffic for MakerBox.

The Big Bang numbers 🔢

Could you share how much sales, revenue & traffic you made from ProductHunt launches?

Yeah, We got 12.6K visitors for our website and we made $6,000 from Product Hunt during the last 7 months.

The Big Bang advice 🗣️

3 advice you would give to creators who want to launch on Product hunt?

Read our guide on how to launch an indie startup on Product Hunt. It really has all the answers inside.

https://blog.makerbox.club/how-to-win-product-hunt/

The Big Bang mistake ❌

Could you share what are the mistakes one should avoid while launching on Product Hunt?

1. Not having enough audience to support the launch

2. No soft launch to the audience before the PH launch

3. Don’t have distractions on launch day

What are your future plans? What are the upcoming launches from Makerbox?

Good question! In January we’re planning to launch a course about positioning. Have a lot of plans, but need to decide on the sequence.

Thanks a lot, Sveta for sharing your Product Hunt strategies and secrets with us.

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🤝Let’s Grow Together

1. If you’ve learnt something from The Big Bang Launch Newsletter, please share it with your maker friends and invite them to subscribe here.

2. If you’re launching any new product this week, reply with the product name or the landing page link, and we will support it from our side.

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👋 That’s it from our side guys,

Let’s meet next week with another successful launch story in The Big Bang Launch Newsletter.

If you haven’t subscribed till now, subscribe to The Big Bang Launch Newsletter and unlock the strategies & secrets behind successful Product Hunt Launches.