Recover the 28 days
after launch day.
For founders whose Product Hunt or Show HN traffic died in 48 hours. One scorecard. One channel plan. No dashboard.
No signup. No waitlist. The scorecard works for any launch.
28-day decay vs. recovery
Two trajectories.
One channel plan.
Same launch, same upvotes. The gap between the curves is one daily brief.
Stylized comparison, not measured data. Recovery peaks are the channel events scored highest by the agent in the scorecard above. The y-axis is illustrative.
28 days
to retarget after launch day
12 rows
in the recovery scorecard
$0
retargeting spend required
1 ICP
one founder, one map
The pain
You launched.
Then the dashboard went quiet.
Most launches die at hour 48 — and the work that compounds never gets done.
- Top 3 PH comments answered, the long tail ignored
- Show HN went up at 4 PM ET, buried at rank 30
- Calendar emptied; the launch became a footnote
Pulled from r/SideProject + IndieHackers postmortems. S-001 S-002
Launch dashboard
acme.io · last 7 days
Day 1 signups
142
Day 7 signups
3
Daily signups (last 7 days)
"Got 500 upvotes, then nothing. What did I do wrong?"
— typical day-7 founder DM
How it works
A daily channel brief.
Not another launch checklist app.
Every morning the agent scores the next 24 hours and writes one brief. Posting stays in your hands.
- 01
Tell it where you launched
PH URL, ICP one-liner, three target communities.
- 02
A scoring agent ranks the next move
Channel, time window, posting-rule risk — ranked daily.
- 03
One brief, one tracker row
Draft title, community rule, KPI to watch. You ship.
Today's channel brief
scored at 06:00 ET
Top move
score 0.84Show HN — your launch teardown
Post 09:00–10:00 ET · Tue Wed Thu only
Draft title
"Show HN: I built a post-launch desk after my own PH flopped"
Rule risk
Low — Show HN allows postmortems
KPI
Front-page minutes
Useful artifact — no signup
Post-Launch 7-Day Recovery Scorecard
Twelve tactics from real postmortems. Tick what you did — your top 3 gaps appear below.
Recovery score
Twelve checks across days 1 to 7
- Day 1
Pass criterion / common failure
Pass
All comments answered same day, threaded replies to questions
Common failure
You answered the top 3 and ignored the long tail
●●● - Day 1
Pass criterion / common failure
Pass
10 DMs sent, each references their bio or last post
Common failure
Generic 'thanks for upvoting!' blast — 0 replies
●●● - Day 1
Pass criterion / common failure
Pass
Two threads pinned that show real use cases or testimonials
Common failure
Pinned your own 'thanks for the support!' — kills momentum
●●● - Day 2
Pass criterion / common failure
Pass
Posted 9–10 AM ET window, title is a question or specific claim, no marketing voice
Common failure
Posted 4 PM ET, title reads 'Show HN: My new app for X' — buried by HN ranking decay
●●● - Day 2
Pass criterion / common failure
Pass
20 emails sent, each mentions a specific thing about the recipient
Common failure
You wrote 'Just launched on PH! Would mean a lot…' to your full list
●●● - Day 3
Pass criterion / common failure
Pass
Numbers-led retro: signups, source breakdown, what you'd do differently
Common failure
Skipped — 'I'll write it next week' (you won't)
●●● - Day 3
Pass criterion / common failure
Pass
3 named subreddits/Discords/Slacks with member counts and posting rules read
Common failure
Posted in r/SideProject and r/SaaS and called it 'distribution'
●●● - Day 4
Pass criterion / common failure
Pass
5 outreach emails sent with a specific story angle, not a press release
Common failure
Sent the PH page link with 'thought this might interest you'
●●● - Day 5
Pass criterion / common failure
Pass
Top 5 referrers identified by name; you know which one converted best
Common failure
Still staring at the PH page's vanity upvote count
●●● - Day 6
Pass criterion / common failure
Pass
Post lives on your domain, has internal links, targets a specific search query
Common failure
Wrote a Medium thinkpiece about 'lessons learned' — earns no backlinks
●●● - Day 7
Pass criterion / common failure
Pass
3 submissions with proper screenshots and category fits
Common failure
Skipped because 'PH was enough' (it wasn't)
●●● - Day 7
Pass criterion / common failure
Pass
Week 2/3/4 each have one specific channel and one specific output
Common failure
Calendar empty — momentum decays into spreadsheet fatigue
●●●
Why this exists
Three patterns in almost every
flopped-launch postmortem.
Repeated observations from real founder writeups. Confidence: medium.
Pattern 01
Founders stop posting after day 2
Postmortems describe a 48-hour active window, then a quiet week. Most founders blame themselves, not the product.
Pattern 02
Show HN posts die when timed wrong
HN rank decay favors the early-US-morning window. Posts submitted late-afternoon ET report rank 25+ instantly and miss the front page.
Related reading
Posts in this recovery cluster.
-
Product Hunt launch with no signups — what to do next week
A diagnostic flow for the seven most-common reasons launch traffic stalls — and the one move per branch.
Read the post
-
Show HN after Product Hunt — the 9 AM ET timing rule and why most posts die
HN rank decay favors a tight morning window. The numbers behind the rule and a posting checklist.
Read the post
-
Post-launch checklist for indie founders: 7 days after Product Hunt
Twelve tactics across day 1 to 7, with pass criteria and the common failure mode for each.
Read the post
-
BetaList vs Product Hunt for solo founders in 2026
Side-by-side: traffic quality, signup rate, audience overlap, posting rules, and when to use which.
Read the post
FAQ
Questions, answered.
Eight common questions. Tap any to expand.