Product Hunt is one of the best places to submit your new product to help give it a popularity boost.
Startups, individuals and established brands can all launch their products on Product Hunt to gain momentum, press, and traffic. Successfully launching on Product Hunt is an art form in itself. Here we will give you our top 9 tried and tested tips on how to successfully launch on Product Hunt.
What is Product Hunt?
Product Hunt is a website that helps people share and discover new products, like the latest technology, new websites and mobile apps. These new startups or products are posted daily, and the community then “votes” for the product of the day. Product Hunt thus acts as a launchpad for those who’s products scored well within the community of voters.
Who uses Product Hunt?
- Product Hunt is perfect for Startups and brands as a way to access a large audience to promote their product or app.
- Curious internet explorers and those who want to stay ahead of the curve or interested in the latest tech and ideas.
Why we use Product Hunt?
Product Hunt has been an awesome tool in our launch kit for Mixkit and here at Envato. We’ve succeeded, and flopped, with our launches and have learned a hell of a lot!
In our first launch for Mixkit, we scored Product of the Day, Week & Month. Plus, the second-best product for the year last year!
In the second Mixkit launch we scored, 2nd product of the day.
We’ve also launched things other than Mixkit that have flopped.
Product Hunt has been an important driver of traffic for us in the beginning and with a successful launch, we not only saw benefits from the day, week & month that we were upvoted for, but for months afterwards. Product Hunt for the year continued to be our third highest referrer through its email newsletters, Twitter inclusions, and our successful listings. So how did we succeed in the popularity contest that is Product Hunt Launches?
9 Product Hunt Launch Tips
These are the most valuable tips we find truly practical in our previous launches:
- Do your research!
All you have to do is Google “Product Hunt Launch Tips” to find hundreds of articles telling you the ins and outs of launching. Don’t just read a few – dig deep and do your research! If you haven’t already, sign up to Product Hunt, watch it closely, read all you can about ranking factors and ask questions.
Pro Tip: Connect with successful hunters early and start chatting about the strategies they use. - Find an awesome Hunter!
On Product Hunt, there are Hunters and the Makers. Hunters are known as the early adopters of the site and can share it with the community. Makers are often the developers, product managers or contributors to the product.
If you’re new to Product Hunt, you won’t have the ability to post straight away, so you should find an experienced hunter to post about your product.
When you set out to find a hunter to post your product you should be looking for someone with a large following, both on Product Hunt and other platforms such as Twitter. You should also be going after hunters who align with your product.
Here is a list of top hunters, but also search on Twitter for hunters seeking new products to push. - Timing is everything
Product Hunt is a popularity contest, so post early in the day/week/month to increase your chances of the top listing. The “race” takes place from PST 00:00 and to PST 23:59. You have only one day, 24 hours, to convince Product Hunt users and people in the tech industry that your product has what it takes to become successful.
Note: Fridays and Mondays are not the best days to launch. - Clear your calendar
You’ll need to be around all day, to answer questions and continue to promote your product. You and your team should do nothing but share links, answer questions, and stay actively engaged with everyone on the platform. Don’t forget to thank everyone who shared and upvoted the product. - 6 Month Rule
When considering how many times you can launch on Product Hunt, this point is important, and we found this answer out the hard way. Product Hunt is a powerful launch tool, but they are well aware of this, so you cannot launch again with the same domain within 6 months. So, if you have a big update, upgrade or new feature added, time your launch on Product Hunt 6 months after your last launch, or you will not be eligible to be featured on the home page. - Nail your headline and description
Best practices around product components are well documented but these few tips are super important:
– Have a clear one-liner title,
– Make your icon into a GIF to stand out,
– Make sure all your images have the right dimensions,
– Even AB Test the Product Hunt specific value proposition. - Don’t ask for upvotes (Publicly)
Instead, ask for feedback Publicly, and upvotes discreetly. You can even suggest specific questions that you have answers ready for with trusted Product Hunters & Makers or list them in your comment section.
- The algorithm matters
When Product Hunt sees multiple upvotes coming from the same IP address, or coming from the same link, it’s believed they will be devalued therefore your upvotes count is less effective. You need votes from a variety of sources, not just everyone from your organization, or from one link from an email blast. - Do your Prep work!
It’s believed that the active Product Hunt community member votes matter the most. Create a list of 10 engaged Product Hunt users that know you are going to launch. Ensure they are prepped and ready to vote and engage with comments. Use these people to help you build hype and spread the word.
And there you have it! Our top tips for how to launch on Product Hunt. Good luck on your launches and get active as a Product Hunt community member 😻
