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Nika

The questions I get most often about Product Hunt and answers

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During the week, I receive a lot of questions about Product Hunt, and some of them are very frequent. I thought I would post the most frequent ones here, and a possible answer to them.

🤔 Is it worth having a hunter?

If the hunter has a large follower base, a strong community, and a good reputation (and your product is also good, i.e. it will be featured): YES, IT IS WORTH HAVING A HUNTER. It will multiply your visibility and success

🤔 Why are my discussion posts not approved?

This question would be better answered by the internal team.

However, possible reasons could be the following:

–You are violating the community and discussion (forum) rules

– You do not have a reputation and an established profile

🤔 How can I ensure my product is featured?

The product should be innovative, useful, and shouldn't be "repeated" on the platform. Try to make it as quality as possible.

These 2 sources can answer the question better: Gabe's Thread & Featuring Guidelines.

🤔 How can I get many, many, many upvotes?

  • Have a "strong product", so it will "earn" sympathy through its usefulness.

  • Build a strong social media platform presence and announce your next steps, progress, and launch events.

  • Build communities across the platforms (and also offline) so you can reach out to your friends without guilt.

  • Ask for upvotes for existing users if you have, and ask for feedback from successful makers/founders who could eventually support you.

  • Ask new people to register on the platform, educate them on how to create an account, and how to use it (and upvote for you).

  • Build the Product Hunt community – check the video in the comments. 🙂

🤔 Will you hunt for my product?

At the moment, I am not hunting products, but I do not exclude this option for the future. There are other ways you can collaborate with me, and those are mentioned in my profile links.

I hope this will help you a bit. If you have additional questions, feel free to ask. :)

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Nika

A few tips on how you can build the Product Hunt community:

Nika

I still cannot believe I used my huge head for this thumbnail :D

Bingbing Yan

@busmark_w_nika Don't be shy, it's magnified charm 😄

Ju Chuang Ark

Thank you for your generosity in sharing this. I'm a new user, and this is helpful! 😁I hope to have the chance to get your guidance if I run into problems afterward. 🙂

Nika

@partick_support Hope it helped ;)

Eljo Prifti

Launching with well known hunter can put you in top 5 of the day even you have an average product.

Distribution is the key to get first customers, then you have to deal with churn later ☺️

Nika

@eljo_prifti I think that it is important to have a good product as well, because if it is "rejected" – I mean only launched, you will not appear in the list among featured and there are fewer chances that people tap on "Load more".

Eljo Prifti

@busmark_w_nika this is possibly, but trust me I have seen average products make it only because distribution was good and I have seen awesome products being in the bottom of the list because they had poor distribution. It’s relative.

Nika

@eljo_prifti When was it? Do you mean these couple of months? Or in the distanced past?

MubashirullahD

@eljo_prifti we saw someone signup from a vertical we are interested in and they left after some part had a bad UX. I'm thinking my team should delay launch. Can't afford a high churn. Wouldn't be a point to launching a beta product. Beta... maybe the beta emphasis will help.

Hossein Yazdi

Thanks, Nika! I think beginners will find this guide really helpful—it pretty much answers all their questions!

Nika

@hosseinyazdi Thank you! :) I think that especially those links can help :)

Rohan Chaubey

For anyone launching their cat’s 🐱 AI startup here's Nika's tips:

Be innovative

Be popular

Have friends

Maybe bribe your grandma to make a PH account. :P

Nika

@rohanrecommends :D you wrote it perfectly. I will use it as TL;DR :DD

Justin Jincaid

Thank you, Nika! I've noticed you're very active on Product Hunt, and you've been incredibly helpful to beginners like me.

I have a question: Regarding the topic of 'How can I get many upvotes?' — what can we do if our product isn't featured? From what I understand, if it's not featured, it won’t appear on the Product Hunt homepage, which means significantly less exposure and traffic. Then we have to wait 180 days to launch again — and even then, there's no guarantee it will be featured. It feels like a complete gamble.

BTW, I'm launching my product tomorrow, would be appreciated if you'd give us your support! :)

Nika

@itsjustin Hey Justin, to be in your shoes, I would make sure that it matches the guidelines, but also make sure whether a similar product was/wasn't on PH – to check why they weren't featured and try to identify possible threats/gaps you could fill and improve. It really helps when you provide materials (text, photos, videos) in high quality. The final decision is always up to the internal team, so at least inform yourself about what parameters your product/lunch is missing. Good luck! :)

Parth Ahir

This is super helpful—thank you for breaking it down so clearly. There's a lot of noise around launching on Product Hunt, and this gives a grounded perspective on what actually matters.

Totally agree that having a great product and strong community makes the biggest difference. Out of curiosity, have you seen any underrated tactics lately that helped lesser-known makers get noticed?

Appreciate you sharing your insights!

Nika

@parth_ahir Hey Parth, thanks for your positive feedback :) Maybe not tactics (and I need to say that my observation is very subjective), but my attention was really grabbed by some "fun product" for a leisure activity and relaxation. And for some reason, I always pay attention to a launch where the profile photo is GIF.

MubashirullahD

Do you have advice on "social media platform presence". It is so hard to do. It's like the algorithm is picking favourites :(

Nika

@mubashirullahd Do you have one platform that you like the most, and that is relevant also from the point of your possible users? If yes, try to focus on one for now.

Abdul Rehman

  • It thank you (e.g"Great roundup! Super helpful for first-time launchers.")

  • It receives more engagement (which can cause the post to grow in the algorithm)

  • It allows you to comment about your experience or tip

Nika

@abod_rehman Do you refer to successful launch or discussion? :D

Bingbing Yan

Thank you for sharing these, Nika.

I've recently noticed that after being active in the community as well as giving comments, my POINTS have even gotten lower.

This is a bit frustrating for me :(