A quick intro about Twinr
Twinr is a fast & affordable no code mobile app builder to automatically convert any website to high quality & fully customized native Android & iOS apps.
Gaurav launched Twinr on 20th of february on Product Hunt and here is their launch performance:
- Upvotes: 1,588
- Comments: 706
- Day rank: 1
- Week rank: 2
Let’s unlock all their launch strategies and secrets.
Maker Interview
Hi Gaurav, Welcome to the Big Bang Launch Newsletter. Could you tell us a bit about yourself and your journey into Twinr?
I began my own freelancing service based company in 2014. And I worked on it for about seven years.
While working there, The one question I got everyday from customers was -can you reduce the budget? Can you deliver the project faster?
So I felt there must be a solution to minimise these development processes,time and costs, and utilise the existing assets of a company to create a mobile application.
That’s when my journey building Twinr began.
We noticed that you launched the first version of Twinr on Product Hunt a year before. How did that happen & why did you decide to re-launch Twinr 2.0 on PH?
When we launched the first time, we were still in beta, and I wasn’t fully aware of the power of Product Hunt. We assumed it was a business directory, so we created an account and posted our product. And we didn’t pay attention to that launch as we launched just for backlink purposes.
But when we started working on Twinr 2.0 this year, with more features & support for all industries, we wanted real feedback from customers.And we felt, a product hunt launch is an amazing way to get that. Because Product Hunt has users across different industries.
That was our reason to relaunch Twinr 2.0 on Product Hunt this year.
At what phase did you launch Twinr 2.0 on Product Hunt?
We had the complete version of Twinr 2.0 ready one month before the launch. (out of beta).
We initially pushed it to our existing users to get feedback from them and one week later, we launched on product hunt.
When did you start planning for your product hunt launch?
We started planning one month before the product hunt launch.This includes preparing all the necessary assets, connecting with people who can support our launch, reach outs and preparing the launch strategy.
Can you share your step-by-step launch strategy?
1) The first step was finding a hunter for the launch:
We looked for a hunter who can guide us in this launch process, since I wasn’t aware about how product hunt works.And that’s how we got Rohan Chaubey to be our hunter.
Our hunter Rohan Chaubey helped us to prepare for our launch, and also advised on the launch strategies we can use.
2) Preparing our launch strategy:
Once we had the hunter, The next step was to prepare our launch strategy.
1) How to reach out to people on launch day
2) Whom to reach out to
We first decided on our social media campaigns & how we were going to execute them. We planned Campaigns for the pre-launch, launch and post-launch strategy.
Once social media strategy was done, the next step was deciding how to reach out to people 1-on-1.
We began planning how to message people to support us on launch day, ask them to engage with our launch, comment and try it out.
To achieve that, we made a list of our existing customers who can help us reach out to their network and get more support.
We also reached out to founders who have launched or were about to launch on Product Hunt & asked for their feedback. And we listed down their profiles in a doc, to ask for support when our launch goes live.
Apart from this, I reached out to people within our industry and my founder friends asking for support on the day of launch.
3) Email strategy:
We sent 2 emails to all our existing subscribers before the launch.
1’st email – 7 days before the launch, announcing for the 1’st time
2nd mail – 1 day before the launch reminding about the launch
How did you create buzz for your launch?
We started a “12 days 12 usecases” series to showcase the power of Twinr when there was 2 weeks left for launch. And each day of this series, we converted one big brand website into a mobile application using Twinr.
For example, for the restaurant category, we converted Starbucks website into a mobile application.
This helped us showcase the power of Twinr 2.0 during the pre-launch phase and create anticipation among all users for the launch. Doing this also helped us to differentiate Twinr from competitors.
You ran an interesting campaign called “Your launch, My tweet” before your product hunt launch. Can you share how it helped the launch?
Yes. We started a campaign called “Your launch, My tweet” on twitter and promised other makers that,
They can get a free shout out for their launch from our profiles by messaging us. In return, we asked them to support our launch when we go live.
That campaign worked really well for us in getting support, since we gave our support to other makers before we asked for their support to our launch.
What was your post-launch strategy?
The first thing we did post-launch was to acknowledge and thank all people who supported our launch.Then we shared our PH launch strategy and how we reached no 1 in all the communities who supported us to help other makers.
On social media, we wanted to get more awareness of our products,so we shared how many customers we acquired from the launch and the benefits of product hunt launch.
The main goal post launch was to arrange demos to all those who had shown interest in Twinr during the launch and convert them into customers.
What did you do on launch day?
We set a goal to get our first 200 upvotes on product hunt within the first 30 minutes. We wanted to rank #1, as that would get the maximum traffic for twinr.
1) So the moment our launch went live, I started reaching out to all my founder friends and connections whom our team had contacted before the launch, asking for their support.
2)We had a social media person dedicated to posting each milestone Twinr hit on product hunt.
For ex: for every 100 new upvotes we reached, we kept posting the milestone on social media. And we kept doing it till 1100 upvotes.
3) We had another team member dedicated to replying to every comment we got on product hunt. We made sure all the questions and feedback from the community were replied as soon as possible.
The last 3-4 hours, was very stressful since you want to pull off your best. So all team members started reaching out to their network for support.
4) We also sent 2 emails on the launch day (based on our subscribers time zone) informing our existing subscribers about the launch and asking for their support on product hunt
What were the top traffic sources for your launch?
Our main traffic sources are:
- Linkedin – top traffic source
- Twitter (our “your launch my tweet” campaign worked really well)
- Whatsapp groups and communities
- Our internal connections and friends
How did you choose your hunter & how did having a hunter help with your launch?
When we started looking for a hunter, I came across a lot of them with huge following (100,000+ followers) but I noticed that they might be very busy and would not be able to collaborate with us on our launch and guide us.
So we were looking for a hunter who can be collaborative in our launch.
Our hunter, Rohan, runs an active community on whatsapp for product hunt.And that’s how we came across him. We approached him because we loved the way he was managing the community and got on a video call with him explaining everything about Twinr.
He loved what we were doing, believed in us and on boarded as our hunter right after our call.
I don’t think having a hunter can directly bring you a lot of upvotes. But they can give you strategy and how you need to prepare for your launch. Our hunter Rohan gave feedback and helped us with our product hunt graphics, maker comments and how we need to draft our content.And that was really helpful for us.
What were your numbers from the product hunt launch?
- 5000+ visitors
- 200+ signups
What are your 3 advices to a maker who is launching on product hunt?
- Give and take – before you ask for support, you need to offer your support. You need to be active on social media & make sure your target audience knows that you’re going to launch either through your posts or your mutual connections.
- Leverage the community – Make use of communities like reddit, indiehackers as much as possible. These communities have a lot of technical people who could be interested in what you are building and offer you highly valuable feedback.
- Don’t lose hope – You will face a lot of hurdles during your launch, but just keep pushing through them.If you keep following the launch strategies you have planned, you will definitely get the result/expected result.
What are other platforms apart from product hunt that helped you with your launch?
We launched Twinr on Appsumo when it was in its early stages, and it helped us a lot.
Offering a lifetime deal of Twinr on appsumo, got 200+ paid users from the launch. And all those early adopters helped us get real honest feedback on Twinr, by letting us know the features they wanted and improve Twinr.
So I would recommend any SaaS founder who wants to get feedback from early adopters to consider launching on appsumo for a limited time.
Thanks a lot, Gaurav for sharing your Product Hunt strategies and secrets with us.
Checkout Twinr for more details.
