Crafting a successful launch 🚀

Passion Economy Stack ranked #2 in Product Hunt!

We launched the Passion Economy Stack yesterday (1/10/2020)!

Where it started

I made a call into the ether asking for collaborators on a no-code, passion economy project. (Here was my “pitch deck” on Notion).

8 people wanted to hear more, 1 person committed. (Woohoo, hi Zack 👋)

How it’s going

We beat our goals, made new friends & converted more passion economy geeks.

Main Goals:

[BEAT] Goal: get into top #5; Actual: top #2
[BEAT] Goal: 50 subscriptions to newsletter; Actual: 150+ (3x -- definitely undercounted!)

Milestones:

+17 new resource recommendations
Product Hunt Metrics: 315 upvotes (& counting), 47 comments, 8 5-star reviews
Launch Tweets: 263 likes & 48 retweets + many great testimonials
At least 5 people who've explicitly said they discovered passion economy because of this
At least 5 people who've explicitly said their journey to learn was accelerated

BONUS:

+200 new twitter followers each
many new friends in our orbit who are excited about the passion economy
1 super awesome partner and friend!

Lessons from the launch

Set (ambitious) goals. We beat our goals - which is great - but beating by a factor of 3x showed we could’ve given ourselves more credit. Next time :)
Be kind to controversy. There was one person who responded condescendingly and unfavorably to the launch in a semi-public way (use weird and embarrassing to describe what we were doing 😓). We could’ve been sarcastic or hostile as well, or ignored the comments all together. But ended responding gently and read between the lines of her comments to pull relevant feedback for our product. People ended up messaging us directly offering notes of encouragement (really sweet!) and supported the project even more. Kindness goes a long way.
#BuildInPublic. I was hesitant to talk about the project before we actually launched, thinking: No finished product? No value… Wrong mindset. We tweeted about it pre-launch and ended up with:

1) A domain name — someone was thinking about the same idea and offered his domain to help out ❤️

2) A “waitlist” of supporters ready to amplify our launch

3) A willing Product Hunt hunter.

We wouldn’t have gotten 1, 2 otherwise. Building in public is powerful.

Don’t be afraid to reach out to high-reach amplifiers, early & make it easy for them to amplify.

Don’t be afraid: I was personally hesitant to reach out to “experts” — they had no business dealing with a stranger. But I was surprised with the kindness and power of Twitter & communities — so many people were willing to go above and beyond to help. If you’re building something of value, people will support. I even ended up conversing with two AWESOME female investors I look up to through the project (fangirling!)
High-reach amplifiers: 1 tweet from a person with tens of thousands of followers will create the flywheels to keep your launch hot throughout the day. We scouted for several of these high-reach amplifiers and they graciously let us borrow their audience.
Early: Give a heads-up about the launch and make the ask a couple days before.
Make it Easy: Give a template or an “easier” option. We said: 1) here’s the link & you can share, comment, upvote, do whatever you wish OR 2) here’s a tweet you can just retweet.

Finally, why am I passionate about the passion economy?

I think it’s beautiful that the thesis advocates more access and opportunity in empowering anyone to make a living doing what they love.

Take my dad for instance:

Creating access and economy opportunity has always been a theme in my pursuits — connecting job opportunities with passionate job seekers @ LinkedIn, empowering Filipino livestream creators @ Kumu, bridging Silicon Valley to emerging markets in Southeast Asia @ Cognity Labs & community building in general.

Creating access and opportunity through building more & more for the passion economy is the next natural pursuit.

Watch out, world.

🚀 Project of the week

The one and only Passion Economy Stack

👀 Nudges of the week

Raindrop.io - my friend Patty Mou (author of Wellness Wisdom + Amor Fati, overall badass, & our current roomie @ Salt Lake!) recommended this bookmark manager — it’s how she organizes the content she consumes, and eventually curates for her newsletters. Giving it a go for my content consumption & creation needs this week.