How to Successfully Launch on Product Hunt?

Product Hunt is a community-driven platform for early adopters, makers (anyone who uses tech to solve their problems), entrepreneurs, developers, investors, and people who love trying new, innovative, and unique software products.

We have launched multiple products on Product Hunt, including two of our best resources for product managers, to reach the audience we wanted:

In the journey of launching these products, we have learned a few lessons which helped us perfect our Product Hunt launch strategy.

And we have shared just that in this article.

Let’s start by looking at why you should launch your product on Product Hunt.

Benefits of launching your product on Product Hunt

1. Increased initial visibility and traction

One of the primary reasons you should launch your product on this free platform is because it attracts the right people's attention. When you “enter” the market, the first thing you want is people talking about your product, and that’s where Product Hunt helps greatly.

Furthermore, your product will not just be seen by your intended audience. It will also appear on the radar of tech-savvy developers, entrepreneurs, investors, etc.

2. Honest feedback from a knowledgeable and active community

A question that keeps most product managers up at night is “did we achieve product-market fit?”. A Product Hunt launch will help you answer that question and provide you with necessary user feedback through comments, reviews, and testimonials.

This will help you learn what you have done right and what you need to improve.

3. Acquire potential customers

Launching on Product Hunt will make it easier for your target audience to find your product, try it out, and share their feedback directly with you. Various successful SaaS products such as Notion and Zoom found their first customers through successful Product Hunt launches.

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The Product Hunt launch got Notion and Zoom on the radar of tech influencers which led to a snowball effect, ultimately resulting in the widespread adoption of these two tools. Now, (almost) every distributed team is aware of how these tools can help them collaborate better.

On top of the above three benefits, launching on Product Hunt could also help you secure funding, hire co-founders or top talent, and keep an eye on your competitors.

To make this Product Hunt Launch guide practical and straightforward, let’s break it down into checklists that will help you pre, during, and post-launch.

Checklist Before launching on Product Hunt

1. Ensure your product is ready

The first step on your Product Hunt pre-launch checklist is to make sure that the community can actively participate when you hit the market. This involves rolling out a complete product after testing all of its features and fixing bugs if any. It is always helpful to have a dedicated testing team to leave no stone unturned.

2. Set deadlines for the launch

According to several Product Hunt users, the best day to launch on Product Hunt is Tuesday and the best time is 12:01 am.

However, while deciding on the Product Hunt launch date, it is important to collaborate with the product team to get everyone’s feedback first. This will help you avoid postponing the date later or launching a product that is not ready.

Setting the product launch deadline will also allow you to set deadlines for the tasks that lead to, take place during, and after the launch. You can group these tasks accordingly to ensure you complete all of them in time.

You can use something as simple as a Trello board:

3. Build and nurture a seed audience

As Product Hunt is a community, you need to be a participant who brings something valuable to the table, rather than an occasional wanderer trying to make a sale. 

Although you can launch your product as soon as your Product Hunt account is a week old, it is recommended that you join the platform three-four months before your launch date. You can spend this time learning about the Product Hunt community through direct interaction.

4. Develop positive relationships with other creators

Other creators (or makers) are people who have been in your shoes. The best way to develop personal relationships is to try out new and innovative products, share feedback, and ask questions to the creators.

However, while ticking this item off from your Product Hunt launch checklist, it is important to ensure you are participating organically and not doing it just for the sake of it.

5. Connect with ‘hunters’

Although Product Hunt says that you can hunt (or launch) your own product, doing it through a successful hunter brings a lot to the table. For instance, they know the platform better than you and have already launched multiple products which come with higher authority. They have an engaged following on the platform, thus helping drive those initial eyeballs.

Of course, there is no guarantee that launching your product through a successful hunter will put your product on the homepage. But it is still worth a shot.

6. Create messages for all channels

When you launch your product on Product Hunt, anyone who follows you, regardless of the platform, should be aware of it. So, for a successful launch, you need to orchestrate a multichannel marketing campaign that sends out the announcement to everyone connected to your brand.

For example, you can create an email automation sequence for your subscribers to remind them of the launch. You can also create social media posts and schedule them in advance.

Create separate creatives for each channel and put them in the pipeline. This will leave you with only one task on the launch day — hitting send.

7. Determine KPIs to track

You can monitor a lot of metrics in and out of Product Hunt to measure your launch’s success such as leaderboard ranking, comments, new followers, upvotes, social media buzz, signups, newsletter subscribers, etc. Determine them earlier and create dashboards to monitor them easily.

Checklist During the Product Hunt launch

1. Tell your product story

A product story helps you form an emotional bond with your audience. Write what inspired you, who are the people you met along the way, and what did you end up doing.

Another way you can do it is by telling the story from the perspective of your ideal user. You can refer to your user personas and map their journey from when they had a problem to when it was solved by your product.

2. Publish all your promotional content

Your Product Hunt promotional content includes a title, tagline, description, images, videos, links, thumbnails, pricing, etc., which is meant to educate your audience about your product.

One of the most important content pieces is your first comment on your listing where you can include things like the product story, key features, use cases, and multimedia while encouraging the community to try out the product and share their thoughts.

3. Start email and social media post automation 

It’s time to send out all the messages that you created for various channels.

This will remind your seed audience that you are hitting the market today and will start the conversation. Create all the necessary content beforehand so your team can participate in the live conversation.

4. Add your creator’s comment

As we mentioned above, the creator’s comment plays a major role in building a connection with your brand. Don’t be overly promotional or ask for upvotes. Rather, be yourself and share your message in a conversational tone. After all, Product Hunt is a community.

5. Constructively engage with the community

An important objective of a Product Hunt launch is to interact with users to learn how you can deliver them an even better experience. However, you need to be mindful of keeping the conversation organic and helpful rather than using it as an opportunity to make a sale.

For instance, if an early adopter finds your product great, you can thank them for trying and request them to keep exploring your product rather than trying to get them to upgrade.

Checklist After the Product Hunt launch

1. Spread the word

Product Hunt is a great source of content. You can capture interactions, lessons, or statistics and use them to fuel your content marketing engine.

For example, you can capture a picture of your team in the “during the launch” phase when they are tirelessly working and share it on social media to thank them for making it all possible.

Also, consider creating a post and/or blog article to thank the Product Hunt community. This will not only improve your brand image but will also help generate more traffic.

2. Learn about your product

A couple of days after the launch day, you will have enough data in the form of comments on your Product Hunt page and in the form of product usage statistics:

This will help you learn how your product is presently being used and what your users expect from you.

It is a good practice to make this step collaborative as it will simplify the process of prioritizing your product’s initiatives for upcoming sprints.

3. Refine your product marketing strategy

“What could we do next time to reach more users?” is a question that almost every product marketer wants answered, regardless of how successful the product launch was. While answering this question, you can find areas of improvement in your product’s messaging and market positioning.

What if you didn’t become the “product of the day”?

Regardless of how well you execute your product launch strategy, there’s no guarantee that you’ll hit the #1 spot in the standings. This is because, like everything in product management, it depends.

It depends on how well you understand your data. It depends on the accuracy of the data you collected. It depends on a million other things.

However, that is okay.

The aim of your launch is not to become the most popular in the Product Hunt community. It is to reach as much of your target audience as you can in the Product Hunt community.

Keep in mind that you can always learn lessons, improve your product, and relaunch its upgraded version.

Summing up

Product Hunt is a global community of early adopters, developers, creators, innovators, investors, and entrepreneurs where you can launch your product to seek actionable feedback, gain customers, and drive initial market demand.

Before launching your product on Product Hunt you need to ensure your product is ready in all aspects, set deadlines for the launch, participate in the community to build a seed audience, build relations with other creators and developers, find and collaborate with hunters, create promotional messages, and determine crucial KPIs that you need to track.

On launch day, you need to publish all your promotional content at the same time, start your email and social media promotional campaigns, add a valuable creator’s comment on your Product Hunt page, and constructively engage with the community.

It is important to maximize learning throughout this process by paying attention to how the community perceives and reacts to your product. You can do this by closely monitoring community activity on your Product Hunt page and user activity through analytics tools.

You need to align the efforts of each team member of your cross-functional product team to make your product launch successful.

Zeda.io is a super app for product teams that allows you to access all tools in your product management tech stack from one place. You can use the native features or bring your existing apps here through integrations.

Start your free trial today.

FAQs

• What is a Product Hunt launch?

A Product Hunt launch is an event that introduces your product to the Product Hunt community and, by extension, to your target audience.

• Should you launch on Product Hunt?

Yes, launching on Product Hunt can help increase visibility and gain early adopters for your product.

• When did Product Hunt launch?

Product Hunt was launched in 2013 by Ryan Hoover to give entrepreneurs, creators, and developers a community to share their products and discover new ones.

• How does Product Hunt work?

It is a community platform where users can browse, upvote, and discover new products in various categories.

• What is the point of Product Hunt?

The point of Product Hunt is to help startups and makers launch and promote their products to a community of early adopters and enthusiasts.

• How many times can you launch on Product Hunt?

You can only launch a product once on Product Hunt. Although you can “technically” launch multiple iterations of the same product, you will not get the same traction as you did the first time as it is not new anymore.

• What is the best day to post on Product Hunt?

Tuesday is considered the best day to post on Product Hunt for maximum visibility.

• How do I launch a Product Hunt product?

To launch a Product Hunt product, you need to sign up for an account and submit your product for review. Keep in mind that you can only launch your product after your account is a week old.

• How often can you launch on Product Hunt?

You can only launch a new product once, but you can update and promote existing products on the platform.