Interesting tools (especially in times when most people switched their attention from feed to DMs). Do you already have any notable milestones you'd like to share? :)
@busmark_w_nika Yes! Happy to hear you noticed that shift too. One huge milestone we’re proud of is that users have seen over 470% more replies with Howdy compared to their usual cold outreach 🤩
@ngorgiashvili That's cool! I reckon that numbers will go beyond thousands % after this PH launch! Wish you GL!
@busmark_w_nika Appreciate that 🙌 We hope this launch helps more and more people see what great DMs can actually do.
Like your "wording on the contrast", so neat.
Automatic contact extraction is a core feature here as I think.
What about contact policy? Might there be any consequences for sending too much DMs within Instagram policy?
@goshatirov You're spot on! And yes our profile matcher does the magic 🪄. It filters the right audience who are actually open to DMs, so you’re not spamming people. We stay in line with Instagram’s policy and within their limits, which keeps things safe.
Also, our users have seen that super personalized messages get the most replies, it’s what really makes the difference.
Hey Product Hunt 👋 I’m Brandon, the founder of Howdy.
Howdy is an AI tool that helps you reach thousands of qualified leads with messages that feel personal like you checked every profile yourself.
📩 Back in early 2019, I was helping celebrities like Dennis Rodman monetize their digital presence. DMs were the simplest way to spark collaborations and sell merchandise. When the pandemic hit, my team and I started building products to help builders grow through DMs.
😩 I still remember spending 3–4 hours a day messaging 80 people on Instagram, checking each profile, and carefully crafting the first message.
💬 People kept asking, “What’s the secret to a great opening message?” We thought about it a lot — and realized the real challenge was the cold DM itself. You can’t say the same thing to thousands of people and expect it to feel personal.
✨ That’s why we built Howdy, to scale personalized messages on Instagram and make cold DMs feel warmer.
📈Since launching, we’ve seen over 470% growth in responses that lead to actual conversations. Because with Howdy, it all starts with the right first message and leads to a real reply.
How Does Howdy Work?
Howdy reads profiles like a human. It looks at bios, posts, and engagement to write DMs people actually want to reply to. You can:
Create contact lists from Instagram posts, hashtags, or followers
Turn contacts into qualified leads with a single prompt
Let Howdy AI write messages that feel personal
Start real conversations that actually get responses
Track performance and double down on what works
Who It's For?
Whether you're launching a product, growing an audience, or closing deals, Howdy helps you start real conversations faster. Perfect for:
Vibe coders and indie hackers focused on testing new concepts and messaging
Founders and Solopreneurs reaching out to users, investors, or early supporters
Marketers scaling outreach and getting replies that convert
Coaches and Freelancers finding clients and keeping relationships warm
Creators and Influencers connecting with fans, brands, and partners
🎁 For Product Hunters
Join from Product Hunt and we’ll double your free credits - up to 300 DMs to try it out.
@brandonshtein Like how you say "Howdy reads profiles like a human"! This solves half the problem. How about after posting the first DM and getting a reply. What is the flow, especially when humans work in different time zones?
Just gave Howdy a spin and wow; this is exactly the kind of tool I wish I had back when I was manually sending cold DMs one-by-one. The messages feel surprisingly personal, and I love that it pulls context from bios and posts so it doesn’t come off like a spray-and-pray tool. Already seeing stronger response rates than what I got using generic outreach tools.
Super curious:
1) How do you see this evolving for platforms beyond Instagram?
2) Any favorite campaign examples from early users you can share?
Congrats on the launch, Brandon & team- this is one of those “why didn’t this exist sooner?” tools 👏
@oren_kozlowski1 thanks for the support on the launch! We've been seeing a lot of initial users sign up and howdy for their influencer outreach.
I have to give the 🏆 to this life insurance user who just signed up 8 hours ago and sent over 370 messages, and is already messaging me about how he's getting more conversations going today than he did the whole month of June!
I think the beauty of the product is you don't need to be a expert get use from it and you don't even need a massive following. Takes what is normally 5-7 days of work and packs into one tool that gets it done for you in less than 10 mins.
Excited to keep seeing founders/indiehackers/vibe coders/marketers etc continue to find their community on instagram. Easiest way to get to 1000 true fans.
@dan_berenholtz1, thank you for supporting our launch. Now, collecting is entirely separate from running your campaign. You can build your list of accounting creators across multiple posts, hashtags, and follower lists.
Once you are done preparing your list, we do the filtering down for you so, since you might be looking for creators with over 1K followers who spoke about accounting or finance and generates on average a certain amount of engagement around the last few posts.
We will then narrow down your list to only leads that match those criteria and have a message curated to their persona and what they post about.
Let me know if that helps.
@dan_berenholtz1 we optimize for simplicity and impact, while always listening to our users' feedback. Thank you always trusting us :)
Hi! I really liked your landing page.
Q: Do your platform work for creating campaigns in Spanish?
@roverdrammen Hi! We love our landing page too 💜
Right now, Howdy supports campaigns in English only, but we’re actively considering adding more languages.
Are you planning to send DMs fully in Spanish? Or would you also need to run some campaigns in English?
The main problem with AI-written cold emails is that... they feel AI-ish. How does your product avoid this?
@ernest_gonet, great question. The unique thing about social media is the context you get about the individual prior to sending the message. We use a combination of profile analysis and curation to ensure messages sound authentic to the recipient.
With our product, we are focused on getting the first response. We try to keep the message short while also including a simple ask or question.
The key to a successful campaign is sending a right message to the most relevant recipient.
Happy to hear Howdy is helping you to connect with more personalized messages! 🙌
What we’re building next might just push you to hit the 5-stars 🌟🤩