Guide

How to Launch on ProductHunt

Mark Savchuk

Marketing Wizzard @ Casual.pm

Get a pre-made project plan based on this how-to guide on startuptoolkit.info

This how-to guide is about launching your product on Product Hunt. You can attract tons of attention to your product or app. Actually, a good number of companies managed to secure investments into their business through a successful Product Hunt campaign.

Read this guide attentively. Roll up your sleeves, get ready and launch your product on Product Hunt. Grab the opportunity! :)

As usual, a detailed step-by-step project plan comes with each story.

Find startup groups on Facebook, Slack, LinkedIn etc.

Product Hunt (PH) is a place where people submit and vote on their favourite tech products. If you have an innovating idea, Product Hunt is an excellent place to get traffic and increase visibility. However, successful Product Hunt campaign requires solid preparation.

Posting on Product Hunt, notify as many people as possible about your launch. Of course, if you want them check out your product.

Create a list of user groups that would be potentially interested in your product.

Slack groups (Chitchats and Slacklist list various slack groups)
Twitter lists
Facebook groups
LinkedIn groups
Friends
Your early users
Another friendly start-up’s
News agencies
Community influencers and top users
Collections curators (on Product Hunt).

General rule is that the more people you notify the better.

Create a convenient spreadsheet with all the groups in order that you will need it later on.

Get your friends together before the launch

It is essential to earn 50 likes in the 1st hour!

Attention! You can't ask people directly to ‘like’ your post, as you will get banned!

Yet, asking people to "check out your product" is totally fine. Make sure your friends know the exact date of your launch on Product Hunt, so they can rally together and..."go check out your product". If you know what I mean ;)

Find and connect with Top Hunters

Top hunters have loads of followers like popular Facebook accounts. This means if they post your product, lots of people will see the post. Your chances for getting more likes will increase dramatically!

You can find Top Hunters here: Yvoschaap

Please, note: if it’s impossible for you to get Top Hunter’s attention, it doesn't mean you can't or shouldn’t post at all. Any registered user can post their products on Product Hunt. However, chances of making it to the top increase if you convince a Top Hunter to mention your product.

Ask your top hunter to launch your product.

The best time to launch is on Tuesday or Wednesday 10:30 CET (you get the biggest traffic on PH at that time).

Make sure you agree with the Top Hunter on the timing of the post in advance!

If you did not talk through the timing with the Top Hunter, it could result in the campaign failure.

Have your PR kit ready.

Presentations, media, your contact details — that’s the required minimum.

You will need a PR kit to send outlets to various media that may be interested in reaching out to you and cover your product.

Here is an explanation of what you should have inside a Press kit.

Install HelloBar

Create a top bar to greet people who land on your website from Product Hunt. It would be nice to grant them a discount code for your product. You can use: Hello Bar or Introbar to quickly create a bar like this one:

Double check your website and social media accounts

Your website may receive lots of traffic during your Product Hunt campaign.

It's your job to make sure everything looks top-notch and works smoothly on your website/landing page.

Here is a short check-list:

Spell check all the texts
Make sure all the media works properly (videos load without a problem etc.)
All the buttons and links work as expected. Registration forms (if you have any) don’t glitch.

FYI, there are awesome tools that help you build great looking landing pages without writing a single line of code. Find out how you can do that in our guide.

Launch

Hopefully you've managed to convince a Top Hunter to post your product using the "Hunt it!" button. Congrats, your product is now live!

FIRST 48 HOURS ARE ESSENTIAL

Remember that you must get 50 upvotes within the first hour to get to the TOP 3! If you get there, you will get lots of traffic in a blink of an eye.

Most of the traffic you will get within 48 hours from the time you hit the "Hunt it" button. During this time you have to push as hard as you can to attract as many people as possible.

Write a comment under the Product post

Once your product is on Product Hunt, write a comment underneath your product. Describe what it does and what kind of problems it solves. Here is a good example of such a comment (every Product Hunt post features one). A small, green circle "M", means "maker" — a person who is responsible for the post.

Email as many people as possible about your Product Hunt launch

Remember that Excel file you've made in the very beginning? The one with all the people you need to contact notify them about your launch on Product Hunt?

Exactly, it's time to let them know about the launch. Simply ask them to go and check out your awesome product!

You might also want to check out Thunderclap: it boosts your social media reach.

Tweet everyone who upvoted you

Everyone who liked your submission should be messaged on Twitter, and I mean everyone!

Set your communication channels right

You should distribute responsibilities among your team for the following:

Emails
Twitter
Slack
Facebook

After Launch

Be prepared for any media attention you might have accumulated with the Product Hunt stint.

For this, have your media kit ready. Make sure you have a list of FAQ’s and answers to them.

This way you save yourself tons of time when talking to the media.

Also, if you are looking for investors, Product Hunt is an amazing spot to attract attention. If your product has got 1000 upvotes, feel free to approach VC firms or incubators all over the world because your product rocks!

Analyze your stats

No matter how many likes you got (a thousand or a dozen), collect all the data and analyze it with your team.

First and foremost, Product Hunt Launch is an experiment. Any experiment leads to some sort of a result. If you want to know the result, identify your goals first.

So, to sum up:

1) Identify your Goals: "reach 300 likes" or "get Seed funding" or "get 1000 sign ups" or "get published Techcrunch"
2) Launch on Product Hunt
3) Collect the data (as much as you possibly can)
4) Analyze it.

Remember that you can Launch on Product Hunt again (you just need to change or update your product significantly). Therefore, you need data to determine what changes you would like to make and how to track the improvements.

Story by

Mark Savchuk

Marketing Wizzard @ Casual.pm