r/ProductHunters • u/withcorrelate • 20h ago
Just Launched Correlate on Product Hunt - Lessons from my first weeks live
Hello fellow Hunters,
I just launched Correlate on Product Hunt today after a couple of weeks of being live to the public. Correlate is my attempt to fill the gap between white glove financial advice gated by high fees and the plethora of budgeting apps available to the public. I'll spare you the details of the product, please check out the PH launch if you're interested. Instead, here's what I've learned so far trying to launch a consumer app in the personal finance space.
- Leverage your network - the majority of my users remain close friends or people in my professional network. My career is in private wealth management where I have established a track record of success and credibility. Right now that is my biggest asset and I am leaning into it as much as possible. A colleague of mine was willing to try out the product after just 2 weeks of me building it and gave me 2 full Google Doc pages of comments and thoughts. Those 2 pages helped me refine glaring gaps in the product at a very early stage. Which leads me to point 2...
- Launch yesterday - of course this is highly dependent on what your product is and the domain you operate in but getting the product in front of users or potential users before its finished will allow you to spot issues early on and form a bit of a roadmap. I had my own ideas of what features I wanted but my first earliest users wanted something completely different so I had to go in the direction that they wanted while putting my own perspective on it. Your next feature is not going to be the secret sauce that magically solves PMF, hearing what your users actually want and building it is how you find PMF. It can be scary to hand an unfinished product to someone but...
- Be vulnerable and be proud - it's scary putting yourself out there and asking people to give their opinions on something you've spent a lot of time and effort on. Whether it's friends, family, or strangers on the internet it can be hard to receive criticism. But the quicker you can learn to take the feedback constructively, the quicker you'll be able and willing to show more people your product and get their feedback. That being said, take pride in what you've built and what you're building towards.
- Be honest and organic - most importantly, people want to feel connected to the product or person they are working with. Take the time to make the product truly yours and rooted in your vision. Don't just let Claude do the design, go do the research of competitor UIs, look at Figma templates, look at Famer templates, watch YouTube videos, etc. That extra mile gets noticed and can be the difference between someone immediately clicking away or staying for an extra 3 seconds. Honesty also goes a long way, people can spot untruthfulness. I have worked on projects with other people who want to make bold claims and use fake numbers/social credibility but I absolutely refuse to ever do that. Instead I try to put value out into the world and hope that the generosity is reciprocated.
I hope this is somewhat useful to at least 1 person and is not just the ramblings of my inner dialogue. Happy Hunting and good luck to all the other builders out there!
- Christian
