Which activity within the Product Hunt launch brought you the most engagement?
By engagement, I mean upvotes, comments, shares – basically anything that helps your product get to the top of the voting.
Do you have an overview of which tactics were most effective in this regard?
When we launched a few years ago, it was probably DMs and push notifications within the app, where we had more users.
But it could be anything.
A viral campaign.
Being hunted by an internal member of the PH team.
An interview with a well-known person.
PR articles etc.
(I'm just giving examples. I want to hear your experience.)
Replies
I dare say that nothing beats personal contacts. It’s always your close ones, friends, colleagues, and followers who help the most.
That’s why I always advise projects to:
-start outreach as early as possible (DMs)
-message all your page followers, message your friends on social networks
Especially if you have a team of 4–5 people, that means at least 200 upvotes. After all, each of you can find 40–50 people who would support you. If you secure them in the first 3–4 hours, that means you’ll be at the top of the ranking, and the rest of the launch will be the easy part.
So, a team of 5: each one sends 40 DMs to people to ask for support. After that, you simply reap the rewards of a successful launch.
@byalexai by DMs you mean Linkedin direct messages?
@borja_diazroig Twitter (X) DMs, Linkedin, FB, Reddit, Telegram,WhatsApp-every way to contact your people
@borja_diazroig @byalexai yep, don't limit yourself only to one platform. + if you have a physical members around you (work, school, yoga classes) you can spread the word, introduce them into the process :)
@byalexai IMO, creating meaningful relationships is the best so you can rely on them anytime... It is not like "let's be friends" 5 seconds before the launch :D
@busmark_w_nika "please support my launch today" (another random guy on my DMs)
@byalexai Literally 12 hours before the launch, they want to get Hunter. :D
@byalexai That's a great breakdown!
@neelptl2602 the best approach!
Real Favicon Generator
@byalexai Silly question: what do you do exactly with DMs? Do you send a message 10 days in advance saying "Please vote for my product in 10 days"? Do you re-send a new message on launch day as a reminder? Do you ask and ask again until your friend answer or do you let it go? etc.
@ph_bernard just tell them you're launching a new product and you need support. Just having a chill chat.
Same on the launch day
@jagriti_kumar1 you should do it several weeks before the launch
not too early, not on the launch day
Nothing brings more engagement than having a solid product! :)
Second, being an active or known PH community member.
@rohanrecommends Both are pretty valid. :)
Atlas
@chrismessina as our Hunter. I can't express enough how awesome he is at feedback. He helped @Atlas focus our messaging and gave us great general advice for our product. Well worth the money to schedule time on his calendar even if he doesn't hunt you. https://chrismessina.me/call-me
The entire Atlas team reached out to their networks to come support us. And not just a single post on LinkedIn. I'm talking about DMs to individuals.
Committing to a launch date and getting the word out early. We were hitting up conferences and telling people all about our launch. Lots of people know about Product Hunt, so it didn't need a lot of explanation, and they were willing to support us... as long as we followed up with a message the day of the launch. 😉
Atlas
@chrismessina @laura_cruickshanks 100% agree with the sentiments here. :-)
@chrismessina @laura_cruickshanks @smith_at_atlas That's a pretty cool story, and the conference activity is a top notch (people speaking face 2 face are more trustworthy – it is a stronger push) :)
P.S. I mentioned PH during Bits & Pretzels in Munich and not many people were familiar with the platform, so I had to explain a lot :D
Atlas
@chrismessina @smith_at_atlas @busmark_w_nika YES!
Another bit of advice Chris told us, educate our network, get them on the platform early so PH counts their engagement the day it matters.
Atlas
@busmark_w_nika Oh no! I supposed PH may not be as globally recognized as I thought! :'-D
I'll add 2 things:
Actively engage before launch - by that I mean, actively add value to a lot of other makers' launch/product/life.
Good to have insanely frictionless product with upfront value
@neelptl2602 Distribution and true relationships are something that can help boost the launch! :) Good point.
Real Favicon Generator
I'm using BeThere to onboard people willing to support my launch (full disclosure: I'm the founder of BeThere)
Since a few months, I launch @Real Favicon Generator on as many platforms as possible in order to gain popularity and add badges to the homepage. But I have neither a large audience nor a large circle of friends I can ask votes from. The service is quite popular, it gets ~4K visitors/day on workdays. Problem: most people come there to, well, generate a favicon, and leave as quickly as possible. If I just say "RealFavicon is live on PH/SoloPush/Uneed/..., please vote for it", I will only get a few votes.
So I do what everyone else does: I prepare my launches. To do this, thanks to BeThere, I display a registration form on @Real Favicon Generator , asking people to help me for a future launch. Everyday, out of thousands of visitors, a few users fill the form and confirm their email address. I currently have a few hundreds of supporters I can contact to ask for their help.
It happened twice already. The first time, I was unexpectedly launched on SoloPush. By "unexpectedly", I mean I registered months earlier, and one day SoloPush dropped me an email telling me I was live. I was immediately able to ask a few supporters to vote for RealFavicon. I could even fine tune my requests to rank #1 while contacting as few supporters as possible, so I didn't burn the pool of supporters. The second time was a week later, on TinyLaunch. Same story. @Real Favicon Generator ranked #1 both times.
@ph_bernard I think such a video on YouTube could be trending – e.g. this is a technique that brings you upvotes on Product Hunt – you will help the future makers to win their PH launch day + will promote your product :) it could have a lot of views.
Real Favicon Generator
@ph_bernard Definitely go for video format – it will be better digestible, you can have more views, and who knows, maybe monetise the YT account later :)
@remingtonv You are a legend!
(I wish to have a badge for this and award you! :DD Made me laugh.)
It’s been a while since I last launched on Product Hunt, and I’m sure a lot has changed since then. At the time, DM outreach brought in the most engagement for us, especially with our existing user base. I’m currently re-evaluating strategies and exploring newer methods for our next launch.
@nitin_joshi Thanks for the information! Keep us updated on any new methods you have found helpful :)
@nitin_joshi When is the upcoming launch? + what did you launch in the past?
I wish I had started connecting with people earlier. Instead, I spent all my time deep in building my project, which I'm still happy about. But honestly, making connections and getting the word out there is still the hardest part for me.
@mattias_jonsson Distribution matters ;)
Indie.Deals
@adithya Wait, ellaborate this story :D
Super interesting thread. Thanks for starting it @busmark_w_nika
For me, what made the biggest difference was layering personal outreach with community engagement. Like many here mentioned, DMs are powerful but what really amplified things was being active in niche groups, Linkdln replies, and even Reddit subs weeks before launch. I wasn’t promoting just genuinely helping folks and showing up. That built trust.
Also, we noticed a huge spike when a few creators posted mini testimonials about our product on LinkedIn right before launch. It wasn't even a promo.
Curious to others here: did anyone try early beta access as a launch strategy?
@suvam_deo Who were those creators? Like influencers? How did you choose them? This is pretty interesting part to me tbh.
Skywork Super Agents
X、reddit、telegram、WhatsApp、fb group
@nora_lam What good Reddit groups for PH launch do you know? :)