We Finished 5th on Product Hunt – And Here's What Happened Next
Three days ago, I hit "Publish" on Product Hunt for ExtraBar, a menu bar customization tool I'd been building for months.
I honestly didn't know what to expect.
What happened next caught me completely off guard.
The Launch Results
Within hours, ExtraBar climbed to 5th place for Product of the Day and earned the "Launch of the Day" award.
The response was overwhelming in the best possible way:
100 paying users in the first 3 days
A dozen comments and feedback messages
Feature requests flooded my Notion board
Reviewed by others on Reddit and personal blogs.
A community that immediately "got it"
I'm not going to lie – I'm still processing it all.
The validation from the Product Hunt community means everything to a solo indie developer working nights and weekends.
What I Learned from 100+ Conversations
The most valuable part wasn't the ranking. It was the feedback.
I spent launch day (and the days after) responding to every single comment.
What emerged was crystal clear:
People wanted more customization, better organization, and deeper integration with their favorite apps.
So I got to work.
Introducing ExtraBar v1.1.6
Based directly on user feedback, here's what's new:
Improved Notion Deep Link Settings
Copy-paste any Notion URL and get the deep link automatically. No more manual formatting or guessing the structure. Just paste, done.
This came from multiple users asking "Can you make Notion setup easier?" The answer is now yes.
Dividers in the Menu
Organize your menu items with visual dividers.
You can add:
Titled sections with icons and colors
Simple separator lines
Visual hierarchy for long menus
If you have 20+ menu items (and some of you do), this helps a lot 😅
Bug Fixes
Fixed the left-click menu issue that several users reported
Various UI/UX improvements
General stability enhancements
Behind the Scenes: The AppitStudio Story
I should mention, I'm not doing this alone.
AppitStudio is a family business, Indie Hacker style.
The team is just four people: my sister, my brother's wife, my best friend, and me. I
handle development, and we've been building together for the past year.
I'm a developer and entrepreneur with 15 years of experience. I was previously CTO at several startups.
Now I'm married with two kids (and one more on the way), and I'm building tools I actually want to use.
We work around the clock, sometimes sleepless nights, because we're committed to delivering the best user experience possible.
When you launch on Product Hunt, and 100 people trust you with their money in 3 days, you don't take that lightly.
What's Next
My Notion board is packed with feature requests.
I'm prioritizing based on what I'm hearing from users:
More deep link integrations
Advanced keyboard shortcuts
Better menu organization tools
Performance improvements
More app presets
The roadmap is user-driven.
If you're using ExtraBar, your feedback directly shapes what gets built next.
Thank You
To everyone who supported the Product Hunt launch – whether you upvoted, commented, or just tried ExtraBar – thank you. Genuinely.
This is just the beginning. More updates are coming.
If you haven't tried ExtraBar yet, we're still running our launch pricing (€9.99 instead of €24.99) until January 31st. One-time payment, lifetime license, no subscription.
If you're already using it, I'd love to hear your thoughts.
What's working? What's missing? What should I build next?
Drop a comment or reach out – I read everything.
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Try ExtraBar: https://extrabar.app
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Replies
Lums
Congrats on the launch! That’s seriously impressive for a solo developer! 👏
We’re about to launch our app too and with our tiny team, just getting a successful launch feels like a huge challenge.. Our main goal is to get people to try it and share their feedback!
Do you have any tips for getting some traction on Product Hunt?
Thanks again and really congrats!
ExtraBar
@marionkesteloot Thank you!
Good luck with your launch! 💪
Things that help us in this launch are our newsletter subscribers and posts on one of the Reddit forums that we are active on and LinkedIn.
And of course, send to friends and family to share, also helped 😄
MultiDrive
Thank you for sharing this story! Great results - wishing your app goes viral in 2026 🎉
ExtraBar
@tetianai Thank you 😄🙏
Wish you a Happy New Year 😃
MultiDrive
@appit_studio Thank you 😊
ExtraBar
@marco_di_cesare Thank you!
The users came from Product Hunt (First launch that actually users came from here, by the way)
Reddit - we got fantastic feedback from the community there,
And users from our other apps.
So it was a big mix.
@appit_studio ok congrats again! so you'd recommend using reddit I guess? Did you have previous experience with reddit? In my case I did not and I am struggling a bit with the spam filters and build a genuine contributor profile without spamming anything. Trying to understand the ideal balance of it. I love to read stuff but never contributed too much in the past
ExtraBar
@marco_di_cesare I was in the same position before,
Reddit is a hard place,
You need to build your profile for a while before even thinking about promoting there,
Make good connections with the mods,
And be active, trying to get real value for other people there.
This is really a long game, but it's worth it.
And also a little bit of luck plays a role 🙂
@appit_studio thank you for the insight! appreciate
ExtraBar
@luke_glover You just need to start,
Launch as fast as possible, and start creating connections with others.
Expect very little attention at the start, no one is waiting for your product launch.
But you must keep going, and talk about the product with more and more people,
Until you get some attention and feedback on your product.
This is super repetitive work, without seeing results for a long time.
But this is part of the game.
Good luck, and looking forward to seeing your product launch! 💪