TBBL #1: The secrets behind Pascio’s 15+ successful launches on Product Hunt.
Unlock the secrets and strategies behind Pascio’s success on Product Hunt
Hey launch pilots 🧑🚀,
This is Karthik and Nithin from LaunchPedia, Welcome to the #1 Issue of The Big Bang Launch Newsletter 🎉
This week, our guest is none other than Pascio, The Kickass Notion creator and Messiah of Product Hunt launches. In just a year of time, he had launched 15+ products and made $15,000+ money.
Ready to unlock all his launch secrets and strategies?
Let’s jump into the interview 👇
Time Travel ⏪
Hi Pascio, Before getting into the Product Hunt Discussions, Could you tell us how you got into the online creator journey?
I used to organize all my life in Google docs. When I showed it to my brother, he recommended Notion and that’s where it all started.
I checked Notion and after 28 cups of coffee, I rebuilt my entire life dashboard on Notion, so that's what got me hooked. However, at that time, I didn't see the business part of it.
But one day, I shared my notion template on Reddit and people went crazy and more people started asking for the template. That’s when I came to know about Notion creators and that kind of pushed me into creating and selling Notion templates as a product.
From there, I started reverse engineering other creators and I kind of modelled my own business out of it.
Out of the products you’ve launched, what are the products that ranked Top 3 on PH? And what was your launch strategy behind them?
My stoic templates are the best-performing ones overall, with my stoic life journal ranking #1 on Product Hunt.
I think it's actually the type of product that matters more than the launch strategy. One thing I learned early is that some products perform better than others and it is due to the kind of people, that are on Product Hunt. PH is full of tech-savvy people and has more guys than girls. As stoic templates are primarily targeted at men, those performed better. So I guess understanding the audience and tailoring your product to them, is what's gonna make or break your product on the Product Hunt.
When is the right time to launch on Product Hunt - Is it after building an MVP or a waitlist or the whole product?
You can do all of them. But, launching as soon as possible with an MVP is better. A lot of guys spend six months building and then they launch only to find out that no one wants their product.
What the smart guys do is they launch with an MVP & they get initial users. Then they Re-launch it after 3 months with a big new feature and they repeat it multiple times. That’s a hack to get free traffic.
And, PH encourages it, Because now they have a product page, where you can do 10 launches for a single product.
How long do you plan to launch a Product and What are your expectations from PH Launch?
I would love to say I have everything planned two weeks in advance, but that would be a blatant lie (laughs). So, like ideally, you would need to plan your launch a few weeks before. But when you launch a lot of products as I do, some launches are well planned and some are executed a few days before.
And, I see Product Hunt as very transactional. When I launch on Product Hunt, I'm looking to be featured on the home page. Thousands of people visit PH And most of them, just check the Top 10 products and then leave. So you need to feature on the home page to get more traffic and sales.
You get into that by getting as many upvotes as possible. When I launch, the goal for me is to have as many people ready to upvote my product as it goes live.
We’ve seen a debate going on whether you need a hunter or not, What’s your take on it?
It really depends on the hunter. Most of the hunters don't help out with the launch. They just post it on Product Hunt and that's it. But if you can get a good hunter that will help promote the launch with their email list/ Twitter, then you can get a lot of benefits from having a hunter. So I say it comes down to finding the right hunter.
As Promotions came up, What are the different mediums you use for promoting your launch?
My main promotion channel is Twitter DMs. Apart from Twitter DMs, I’ve tried promoting on Facebook groups and It hasn’t performed very well. Some people put it on Reddit, and sometimes you'll get banned from that. So honestly, I just promote on Twitter and my email list, which are my major platforms. I don't think the other ones are worth the trouble.
Dark Matter 🔥🔥
What is your pricing strategy for PH Launch - Will you give any discount for product hunt users?
I always price my products lower when I launch and then raise the prices. That's like a thumb rule for me.
I’ve also tried with & without giving discount code for PH launch, however that didn’t make any difference. Discount is not what is gonna make or break the buyer, people who buy your product on Product Hunt - they're gonna buy it no matter if you have a discount or not.
Houston we’ve a problem ⚠️
What are the challenges you’ve faced while launching products on Product Hunt?
One of the challenges is not reading the guidelines closely enough. Like I've tried many times launching and then I found out, okay, I couldn't do that, so that could have been avoided.
The biggest challenge is not ruining your relationship with your audience. When you launch a lot of products without much gap, you have to send out more DMs and emails that will eventually burn out your audience. So, Finding that balance is the toughest challenge.
You’ve made 15K dollars from your products. How much of that came from Product Hunt launches?
Well, that’s a great question. I rely on PH for my numbers, but I know a lot of other guys made just as much money without launching on Product Hunt at all.
So, yeah I will say It's possible to do it without the launch. It’s all about distribution and PH is one other channel.
Having said that, Product Hunt brings you a lot of free traffic and also helps your products rank on Google. If you Google, any of my products, you will find the PH launch page on top of the results. So, there are both short-term (Early boost) and long-term (SEO) benefits from the PH launch.
Watch Out 👀
What is the advice you will give to beginners who want to launch their product on PH?
Consider me as your hunter 😉
Strategize DMs, not just send DMs randomly. Make a database of people that you will reach out to and make sure that you have an okay from everyone.
Don’t forget to frame your product. Look at the top-ranking products in your niche on PH and model what you're gonna do off that. Create a title, tagline, thumbnail and other assets to catch the attention of the people.
If you fail, try again. I mean, it speaks true for a lot of things in life. But specifically with product launches if you fail, like no one is gonna care if you launch it again in a week.
You’ve hunted a lot of products, What are the things you see in a product before hunting?
So in general, notion templates are what I'm hunting. Very tricky though. I'm picking the products if it is a crazy product that is either unique or a popular topic.
What are your future plans?
I’m working on the Ultimate Product Launch Guide, a guide breaking down all the steps needed for a successful product hunt launch.
You can pre-order from here: https://pascio.gumroad.com/l/productlaunchguide
That’s awesome Pascio, all the best and thanks again for coming to The Big Bang Launch Newsletter and sharing your secrets with our launch pilots.