How to hit the bullseye on Product Hunt
Kevin William David unpacks tips and tricks on preparing for a launch on the popular product curation site
It is great when the press covers the launch of your product. But making that happen is not easy, and things do not always go according to plan. After all the effort of following PR advice, getting a publication interested, and talking to its reporter, you might discover that the article completely misses the message.
That is why Product Hunt has become a place where founders go to when debuting their product. Product Hunt has been designed as a platform where founders can not only debut their product as a PR exercise but also a place where their early customers can discover them. This is a classic entrepreneur problem, where they spend an inordinate amount of time on user research and then the tech and once they have that, they’re left with the question: now what? Product Hunt is one platform that could help solve that question. This is why the platform has surged through the priority list in founders handbooks over the years. But Product Hunt isn’t just about posting your product and walking away. It is an exercise in planning and execution.
A successful launch on Product Hunt takes strategizing too. Every single day, there are at least 100 founders announcing products on the platform to an audience that is eager to try out and invest in new innovations. The enthusiastic community of Product Hunt-ers also keeps a watchful eye to rid the site of bots, ballot rigging, and other bad vibes. For your product to make a clean splash, you have to make the most of the 24 hours right after the launch.
As one of the first 100 users of Product Hunt, ever since its newsletter days, Kevin William David is an expert (and a hunter). We spoke to him on how to prepare for a launch and get it right.
Why Product Hunt at all
The problem with using traditional media is that you run the risk of your announcement becoming a needle in the haystack. Hundreds of products get talked about in a single news cycle, a lot depends on how reporters perceive your product, traffic is not assured and it is not always from relevant quarters.
What works in favour of Product Hunt is:
- You get to pick the message and push it. No loss in translation.
- With PR, you spend to get featured. Product Hunt is free.
- There is a large and enthusiastic audience of over 4 million users. Among them: early adopters, founders, investors, designers, developers, product managers, sales guys, marketing folks, people working in the startup or tech spaces.
- These highly engaged product enthusiasts are potential customers and backers.
- You can get early feedback on your product or validate the idea for PMF.
- You can collect social proof through reviews and comments.
A checklist for products that pop
Some categories do better than others, Kevin finds. He lists a few things to remember before deciding on Product Hunt:
- Make sure your product is new.
- If you have launched on Product Hunt before, make sure the product has gone through significant updates.
- The platform loves tech products, especially those that can be downloaded and used, subscribed to, or even hard-wired.
- If you are a product that every department in a company can use, you stand a strong chance on the portal. Something like Slack, for example, says Kevin.
- Products for developers do well too as there are a fair number of makers on the website.
- It is not a place for newsletters, courses, etc.
The window of opportunity
Let’s talk about timing — when to launch. There are two aspects to consider here.
- Timing of the product
Do you launch before or after you have PMF? “That depends on the kind of founder you are and the kind of feedback you are looking for,” Kevin explains.
Let’s break it down a little here. Often founders feel launching an MVP on Product Hunt may lead to the community leaving way too many negative comments. Even though Product Hunt has similar functionalities to Reddit, Kevin insists that pile-ons almost never happen. The community is very empathetic and patient with founders. The feedback it gives is measured and qualitative. But as a founder, you need to understand the ambition of the listing.
- Early users if it is an MVP or an early prototype.
- Feedback to enhance the quality of the product.
- Looking for the next set of paying customers.
Even early stage startups manage to succeed. Take the example of Kodezi, built by a high school student, who launched while having just MVP. Through Product Hunt, the young founder added 200,000 users, raised capital, and began working on an updated version of the product.
2. Timing your launch day
Are you making B2B, enterprise, or work-related tools? Pick a day from Monday to Thursday for the launch then.
There is more traffic on those days because: 1) People are working and more attentive to new releases then, and 2) funded companies usually launch on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Kevin adds a caveat. Avoid launching something when companies such as Apple or Google are announcing products. Your product may get lost in the noise but that shouldn’t stop you from launching on that day. If you believe in yourself and your product, take on Apple on WWDC and beat Apple at its own game.
Are you launching a solo productivity tool or an iPhone app mainly for entertainment? The weekend is easily your best bet, according to Kevin.
Picking the launch hour
You get 24 hours on the homepage. If you are in the US, or in India targeting the US, you don’t have to wait for the waking hours. Kevin recommends scheduling the announcement for 12:01 AM PST, exactly when the clock resets. Think that is too early? Not really.
At that time, it is about 1:30 AM IST, late afternoon or evening in Asia and New Zealand, and early morning in the UK and Europe. “People in these parts of the world will see your product on Product Hunt and upvote it. And by the time it is morning in the US East Coast or West Coast, you will have enough upvotes. Being in the first 5 or 10 of the day lets you make full use of the 24-hour cycle.”
Where you get placed
Before: To make it to the ‘featured’ section on the homepage, founders had to get in touch with Hunters such as Kevin whose posts usually landed there. Otherwise, the products founders submitted used to remain in the ‘newest’ section until someone from the Product Hunt team finds it interesting and takes it from newest to featured.
Now: Product Hunt picks what makes it to the featured section directly. If the product is hunted by a featured hunter, it makes it to the featured section, otherwise, you’ll find it in the newest.. But for those who don’t know hunters, they’ll have to wait for their product to be hunted from the new section. But you can create excitement around your product by launching it a few days before you list it so there’s some momentum coming into the big day.
How to get noticed on the homepage
Get these elementary details right and you will have the reader’s attention.
Tagline: This is more important than your name. But you only have 60 characters to play with. So the challenge is to find something intriguing enough to get a Product Hunt user to come to your landing page without being clickbait-y. “A straightforward and to-the-point communication of the value of your product is the best way to do it,” Kevin suggests.
Website: Once they land on your website, you need to woo them in 5–10 seconds or they will bounce. Focus on the basics. Your page should have a great tagline, screenshots of the product, a clear and concise description of the value it adds.
Screenshots and videos: Be prepared with at least 2–3 and up to 7–8 visuals. You will need screenshots of the app and the value users will get from using it. Videos are optional, and are best kept to 1–2 min limit. “The best kind of video is where the founder quickly walks viewers through the product with the help of a screen casting software. It is relatable and more personal,” Kevin recommends.
Topics: These don’t matter as much for discovery. Just make sure to choose an apt one.
Description: The site allows a 260-character introduction for your product so word it wisely. For the remaining details, it is a good idea to use the first comment. You can say who you are, what problem you are solving and why, list features you plan to build down the line, invite feedback, mention offers and discounts.
Apps: Users on the web tend to sign up for web apps. Conversions are typically lower for mobile apps, Kevin says, because they require users to go to the App Store for downloads. This is especially true if the user is on the web and not on their phone.
In case you want some more references of companies that got it right, check out this link right here.
Do-ahead tasks for the marketing team
Founders tend to make a list of people to reach out to on the launch day — friends, family, startup circles, Slack and WhatsApp communities, LinkedIn groups, etc. — and mass email them.
Kevin begins by warning against such growth hacks. There are a couple of pitfalls with them which can hurt your launch.
- If a lot of new users sign up to Product Hunt on the day of launch and upvote your product first thing, the portal disregards those votes. You can reach out to people and ask them to sign up a few weeks in advance but, be warned, people rarely act on such requests.
- Traffic from growth hacks is inconsistent. You might get 30 upvotes in the first hour which drops off to 10 or less in the next. This lets the Product Hunt algorithm promote other products that have good traction.
The number of daily users on Product Hunt can sometimes go upwards of 100,000. The top 10 products typically have 300–1,000 upvotes.
All you need to do is be clear and user-friendly. “Convey the value of your product and make it easy to sign up for a trial. Don’t ask for upvotes, ask for feedback,” in Kevin view.
It is best for founders to sign up a few days or a week ahead of the launch to know what Product Hunt is and how it works.
How do you ensure consistent traffic? “Have engagement at regular intervals,” Kevin suggests. Try different things on your channels to bring traffic. Start with a message saying ‘Hey we have just launched’. Two hours later, have a message with screenshots of the comments and reviews you have been receiving. Two hours after that, start an AMA between your team and the audience.
If you must, use growth hacks that are meaningful. Come up with 10 common questions users might have and distribute those among your people so that they can post those and trigger a conversation.
If you do all this right, you can be in the Top 10, which gets you featured in the Product Hunt newsletter. The newsletter also occasionally mentions other products if they stood out — by doing a cool Instagram campaign, getting an interesting comment on their launch, or producing an impressive video, for example.
To Kitty or not to Kitty
The Kitty awards are the Oscars of the startup world. Product Hunt recognises makers who are a part of its community in different categories. The portal shares winners on its platforms which brings added attention. It is good to have, Kevin says, but does not always translate to anything substantial.
That is because the site has opened up voting to the community, and winning depends more on the noise founders can make and the number of people they can bring in. By contrast, a G2 review has more relevance because it depends on actual usage.
Maximise your launch
Use the launch day dashboard: You get access to a dashboard on the day of your launch which lets you keep track of trends in engagement for your product — top up voters, where your comments are coming from, what you haven’t responded to, etc. Make full use of it.
Keep the connection going: Follow up with your supporters. Especially with high-quality commenters, respond and get on meetings with them.
Advertise: If you have some bucks to spare, advertise on the Product Hunt website or newsletter to keep the momentum going after your launch.
Feature reviews and badges: Use the reviews and Top 5 / Top 10 badges that you pick up on Product Hunt on your website.
Check out Product Hunt collections: There are community-curated collections for specific types of products which are usually followed by a few 1,000 users each. If there is one that matches your product, mail the curator and try to get on it. The collection’s followers will be notified and will check you out.
Ethics of Hunt-ing
Agencies reach out to founders who are launching and say they will help them get X number of upvotes. These are not ethical, Kevin warns, plus they can harm your launch if the users are not real.
Companies sometimes try to pull a competitor down by spamming their upvotes or comments. That is unethical too.
To find love on Product Hunt, you just need to keep it clean and natural.
