What I’ve Learned to More than 3 Times Launched on Product Hunt
Hello there! My name is Morgan. I founded Gemoo last year and launched it on Product Hunt a few times. It earned a few badges thanks to the help of my teammates, which is very flattering.
After all of this, I realized that Product Hunt is more than just a launch platform; you can think of it as an opera stage where you and your product can perform for a variety of audiences.
Product Hunt, What I’ve Learned
Before performing on that stage, you have to prepare a fancy costume, a group of attractive lines, and so on. After the show, you must interact with your audience and answer their questions in order for them to fully comprehend your products and ideas.
It would be extremely frustrating if your product is excellent but is not seen and used more frequently on Product Hunt due to poor preparation, right?
We are a group of artists to some extent, so I’d like to share what I’ve learned with you and connect with you to discuss how to launch successfully on Product Hunt, or anything about how to be a better product maker.
Table of Contents: hide
😄 Set your goal at the very first start
😄 Prepare at least two weeks earlier
😄 Categorize products into specific tags
😄 Collect resources as much as possible
🙁 Don’t buy upvotes or ask for upvotes
Based on my experience, here are some Dos and Don’ts:
Dos
😄 Set your goal at the very first start
Generate more traffic to your website? More feedback to polish products? Earn badges to help your brand gain social proof. Simply want to interact with more startups and founders?
Set a specific goal before you begin. If you want to get more feedback or traffic, launch on weekdays, especially Wednesday or Thursday; if you need more badges, try weekends when it’s less competitive.
A well-defined goal will direct your efforts in the right direction.
😄 Prepare at least two weeks earlier
Launching on Product Hunt is definitely a marathon, long but inspiring.
Before the race starts, you need to make product videos or prepare pictures to exhibit how awesome your products are. Gifs, by the way, are much more lively and evocative, with a much lower time cost.
Gifs used to demonstrate Gemoo on ProductHunt
You must write a description and tagline, as well as possibly the makers’ comments. You may need to email or DM hunters to schedule a launch day. So many things must be prepared; simply begin as soon as possible.
We’ve invited Ben Lang to hunt for us successfully
😄 Categorize products into specific tags
You may not know who your ideal customers are at the first start, but you do know what your product is. It will be helpful to get a badge if you categorize it well and add some specific tags to it.
I would not recommend some hit tags, such as productivity, technology, or something similar, based on my experience. Hit tags are more competitive and general, making it difficult for specific people to determine the worth of your products.
Badges we’ve got, thanks a lot! Product Hunt
😄 Collect resources as much as possible
Maker resources: connect with more makers in advance through Twitter, Product Hunt, Indie Hackers, and so on. Inviting them to try your product and offer feedback is a good way to get attention.
Social media groups: join FaceBook groups, Slack teams, Discord chat rooms, and subreddits that are related to your products. Ask for feedback and support from these group members. They can be very proactive and suggestive.
Hunters in your fields: If you want to invite hunters to your field, you can find their contact information in the Product Hunt hunters leaderboard. It’s a leaderboard that ranks the best hunters in various categories. (I’ve successfully invited some top hunters; if you want to learn more, please connect with me in twitter to get more tips and tricks.
😄 Prepare some Q&As that may appear
I’ve created a document outlining what my Product Hunt users might ask me and how I should respond, which saved me from a mountain of work on launch day.
You’ll be on the Product Hunt page for nearly a day, so it’s a good idea to practice interacting with the audience beforehand.
Don’ts
🙁 Don’t buy upvotes or ask for upvotes
Product Hunt is very strict about these rules, so don’t try to challenge them or your product will be severely penalized.
Some people may offer to buy upvotes; however, I recommend that you ignore this because it is completely unfair, and once your competitors notice it, it will be exposed, and Product Hunt will punish your products more harshly.
Products will be successful if they are good enough.
🙁 Expect too much on Product Hunt
Product Hunt is more popular than ever, so competition will be fierce.
Aside from that, there are numerous options available, such as AngelList, BetaList, and so on. If you’re interested, I’ll write another post about the platforms we launched and were successful with.
🙁 Only have Plan A
Plan B or Plan C are required before launch day.
What if none of the hunters are interested in hunting your product? What if the hunter you connected with didn’t show up on time? What if the gallery image isn’t working out?
I’ve been through it all, so I wish you could have more contingency plans in place. Oh, and for the pre-hunt, you could preview your launch here to see if it looks good on the page.
🙁 Invite everyone to support you
Some posts may believe that I should solicit support from everyone, including my teammates or colleagues. It could, however, be incorrect.
If one of your teammates is new to Product Hunt, their profile may have a red balloon. If they decide to support you, the quality of your audience may suffer, and Product Hunt may downvote your product.
You can invite them to try and provide feedback via email or direct message; after all, all ideas are welcome at this stage.
All of the above ideas are based on my personal experience; they may be inspirational or exhaustive; if you want to discuss or correct them, please connect and chat with me at any time. BTW, all screenshots in my article are created with Gemoo Snap.
Looking forward to chatting with more founders,
Morgan