Weekly 🔥: How to launch on Product Hunt and hit #1 in late 2022 and more
Welcome to the first edition of our new newsletter! You’ll receive the best practical startup advice straight to your inbox every week!
We’ve got a lot of exciting changes coming at Entrepreneur’s Handbook. You’ll see some huge names dropping by to share articles with us soon.
Special announcement coming next week. Here’s a sneak peek 👀.
How to launch on Product Hunt and be #1 Product of the Day
Corey Haines is a serial entrepreneur and has hit the coveted leaderboard on Product Hunt several times through companies like Swipe Files and SavvyCal. He’s advised other companies such as Potion and Reform who’ve hit the top spot! Here’s his advice so you can do the same:
- Don’t rush as it’s a waste of time to generate buzz if your landing page isn’t perfectly optimized.
- Make a high-fidelity 2-minute product demo through Tella which introduces the founder and the major product differentiators.
- Use the first comment on the ProductHunt page as your elevator pitch. Make it personable, detailed, and easy to read.
- Build momentum immediately — send out a newsletter at 12:02 am PT and publish 3–4 posts on the day
How to not stagnate after early startup successes
Avishai Sam Bitton joined us on the Entrepreneur’s Handbook podcast this week. He founded two companies; Oribi which was sold to LinkedIn and Brainye which bootstrapped to hundreds of millions in revenue. He’s now VP of Marketing and Growth at 8fig and is helping e-commerce sellers scale to ten million. He shared his advice for entrepreneurs who never want to stop learning.
- Don’t be afraid to become an employee again for a founding team that inspires you. Play the long game.
- Build a circle of founders where you can admit you don’t know what you’re doing too.
- People who can give critical feedback as a form of tough love are indispensable.
- Hire entrepreneurs to run segments of your business. Let them do their thing and be open to learning from them.
How to know you’re not an a**hole entrepreneur
Nic Haralambous has built and sold 3 startups and is now an entrepreneur coach. You need a certain level of confidence to be willing to build your own company but you must be careful this doesn’t overstep and become arrogance. Here’s how Nic flipped the script.
- Find a professional, if you’re a successful entrepreneur then you can pay for it. Don’t make excuses.
- Listen more, talk less. You know what your opinions are but you don’t know what other people’s are unless you actually listen.
- Get comfortable expressing your opinion and then moving on. You’re not going to change anyone’s mind over a beer at a pub.
- Keep a list of personal reminders that you want to live by and let these change over time as you grow.
How to scale your startup
Brian Bourque, SVP of Marketing at SmartAsset (a unicorn), knows a thing or two about scaling. In this great thread, he shares 22 principles to help you achieve your own growth, including:
- Sell your story, not your product. Your company isn’t a product, it’s a story. Great stories attract great employees and great customers. Sell your story.
- It’s better to save your a** than your face. Dealing with problems openly creates trust among employees and a sense of community. If people can’t bring problems to you, your company will fail.
- Experimentation beats speculation. Speculation is often useless, so let your customers tell you the answer. If a model suggests viability, test it.
- Your customer is always the hero. People care about what they can do for themselves with your brand’s help. Don’t lose sight of this.
