What are the secret techniques for a successful Product Hunt launch?
Well, after this post, they probably won’t be that secret anymore. 😀
But there are still a few things not everyone knows about:
1. Get hunted by someone with a strong audience.
Even if you already have a lot of followers yourself, getting hunted by someone who also has a strong audience can help you reach more people on launch day.
If your launch gets featured, your followers can receive notifications, as well as the followers of the hunter. So you will reach a broader audience.
2. Grow your Product Hunt page followers before launch.
Not many people use this.
Before launching, ask people to follow your Product Hunt page. When they do, they can receive a notification when you launch.
It’s a simple thing, but I rarely see makers actively doing it.
Ideally, try to do it consistently over time, especially if you plan to relaunch in the future.
3. Live-stream your launch.
This is still pretty rare, but I’ve seen makers do it, usually on X (e.g. Sandra did it @sandradjajic and Max @_maxblade)
It can turn your launch into an event.
What other “secret” Product Hunt launch techniques do you know? 😀
Replies
Scarlett.
Great tips, Nika.
Having a hunter helps a lot, and so does being a maker with a big audience yourself. Getting thousands of people notified about your launch is a pretty serious advantage.
I’d add one more thing: message 10 close friends who have engaged audiences on X or LinkedIn and ask them to quote-post your launch. If you coordinate that well across X and LinkedIn, you can get a lot more eyes on the launch.
One important caveat: those friends should ideally be in tech/startups. A beauty or fitness audience won’t move the needle much.
@byalexai Does Hunters and Makers charge a fee for launching? Any idea?
Scarlett.
@richatsealedvault A maker is someone who build the product, part of the actual team. (a developer/CEO/marketing person etc.)
With hunters, it really depends. Some do it for free, some charge. Some have a flat fee, others take a cut of the revenue from the launch. And the scope can vary a lot too. Sometimes you’re basically just the name attached to the launch. Other times you help with distribution, give advice, or actually put together the whole launch strategy.
@byalexai Thanks that is very useful information and I am positive it will help many new product launchers.
@byalexai Good caveat and it cuts both ways too, even within tech, a quote-post from someone whose audience is mostly other founders/builders hits differently than one whose audience is your actual buyer. Founders will upvote and cheer you on but they're not always who converts.
If the product has a clear ICP, I'd rather have 2-3 quote-posts from people whose audience matches that ICP than 10 from generically "tech-adjacent" accounts smaller reach, much higher signal.
minimalist phone: reduce your screentime
@byalexai Thank you, Alex, I think that on this front of hunting, you have a lot of experience.
Did you try to team up with someone from beauty or fitness when you have that experience?
vibecoder.date
Have existing audience both here and elsewhere
Launch something that is simple in concept i.e.
Apartment Hunter Agent beats Heterogeneous Distributed Inference
Focus on a technologically optimistic product
minimalist phone: reduce your screentime
@build_with_aj Where else do you have other audiences?
vibecoder.date
@busmark_w_nika Barely on twitter lmao.
I should do youtube or something
minimalist phone: reduce your screentime
@build_with_aj if you like long-form content, so either newslettre of YT.
GNGM
I have seen @thibaultll and @marclou launch in public on X with great success.
But it's hard to copy because they have a strong follower base.
minimalist phone: reduce your screentime
@thibaultll @marclou @justin2025 Yes, Marclou and Tibo launched the same day as minimalist phone :D I knew that I was doomed :D
Ha, well the secret's out now 😄
The one I'd add: keep commenting on your own thread throughout launch day, not just at the start. Momentum usually dies mid-afternoon a quick "just hit X" or answering a question that came in keeps it alive when everyone else has gone quiet.
Also: it's the notification trigger and the response to the trigger asap might help.
minimalist phone: reduce your screentime
@aruna_polosofttech Well, it is suitable to answer ASAP while people are logged in within PH, so they can interact back immediately.
I learnt this the hard way after my launch today 😀
minimalist phone: reduce your screentime
@islam_elrefaey What did you launch? :D
minimalist phone: reduce your screentime
@marcelo_earth Have my fingers crossed for you!
I am wondering why PH makes launching a daunting task. Don't you think it should be simple enough to encourage makers to present their products. I am not sure what should change but looking at how hunters and makers solicit support on LinkedIn and other platforms, it seems like a mountain. And the visibility of your launch depends on followers and perhaps advertising fees. I don't know much about the process. I am just sharing my thoughts about launching. I want know the experience of launchers and what they think about the process and how it should be easier.
minimalist phone: reduce your screentime
@richatsealedvault I think that as this platform has grown to big numbers, they need to somehow regulate products and avoid those floppy products, so they need to keep the bar raised, and they need to regulate it somehow. I think
@busmark_w_nika I surely agree, I sometimes read about new launch products and ask myself what is this for. I am yet to test the launch process myself and will record my own experience to share later. I hope this thread picks up steam so we can learn from other people's experiences. Cheers Nika!
minimalist phone: reduce your screentime
@richatsealedvault Thank you:)
Softorino 💻📲
Worth adding what follows from your point 2: the follower notification only fires if the launch gets featured. I launched on a Sunday and wasn't featured, so page followers did nothing for me that day. The comments were the only thing that brought anyone in.
minimalist phone: reduce your screentime
@yelyzaveta_kibets True. How did you customise your launch to increase chances be featured? :)
Softorino 💻📲
@busmark_w_nika Not enough, clearly. I gave the description and the gallery the same treatment I give a landing page, top shot chosen last and the copy rewritten until it named the thing instead of the category. Sunday was the part I got wrong.
On 3, I'd skip it. Livestreams pull in the people who already follow you, and those are the ones who'd have upvoted anyway. I launched Arteza on 25 Aug with 2 followers on the product page, and the only thing that brought strangers in was three weeks of commenting in these forums beforehand. Costs nothing and it compounds, unlike a livestream you do once.
minimalist phone: reduce your screentime
@asadmalik901 It could be, I think that at that time, it was something unusual for me :)
on 1, we swept 38 days of top 8 launches before picking a hunter. six people hunted about 60% of them. follower count turned out to be the wrong filter tho, the biggest account on our list mostly hunts companies from its own fund. worth checking what someone actually hunted last month, not how many follow them.
minimalist phone: reduce your screentime
@niveditha_patluri1 wait... like someone hunts only products related to a specific VC?
@busmark_w_nika yeah. one account on our list hunted 28 times in 38 days. nearly all of them were from the accelerator they run.
so the follower count is real but the access isnt. we look at who someone hunted last month now, not how big they are.