25 short and punchy lessons for a successful launch on Product Hunt

Hi everyone! With the hope to provide value first and ask for help second, here are 25 short and punchy lessons for a successful launch on Product Hunt. I asked a few successful founders to share their lessons, and also added some gems from PH's discussions. The key element - every lesson has only 250 characters or less, so it's not time-consuming and you're not forced to read a 1000-word article (where you find only one piece of good advice). After you read it, I would be more than happy if you can share some of your wisdom about the launch on Product Hunt - in the comments or on my website https://www.startupdock.net/ Here are the lessons: 1) Don’t launch before you have a small following. To have a successful launch, you need at least a small group of supporters who are willing to advocate for your product. This is because Product Hunt doesn't create momentum. It amplifies momentum. (by Demand Curve) 2) Give away on Twitter before the launch. Make a free part of your product. Send it in DM for comment. Write these people on the launch day. If they enjoy the free part, they'll support you! 100 comments -> 100 potential upvotes. (by Sveta Bay) 3) The best time to launch your product is between 12:01-1:00 am PST. (by jacobp) 4) Always capture emails on your site. It’s a basic thing to do. If you have emails, you can contact everyone later to tell about updates, and new launches. (by Levelsio) 5) Create a support group. Find friends and users who have PH accounts, and can support your launch early on, because you must break into the TOP-3 in the first minutes and hold on. The lower you are, the fewer organic users you get. (by Rinat Khat) 6) Split your email list into segments and schedule emails throughout the day to avoid a rush of upvotes in one go. (by Harry Dry) 7) Don't waste your turn with the very first iteration of your site. Have your website ready for the campaign's goal. For me, it was to maximize email subscribers. So I spent the day before my launch making sure my site was in the best possible shape to collect emails. (by Harry Dry) 8) Choose the perfect launch date. Monday is great to launch a content product. We launched on Monday at 12:01 am PST. Tue, Wed, Thu - colossal competition. Fri, Sat, Sun - low traffic. Choose the day according to your targets. (by Sveta Bay) 9) Every day, hundreds of products are submitted, but only a select few are featured on the homepage. We've confirmed that when a super popular hunter hunts your product, it will automatically jump to the front page. These "superusers," as PH calls them, can choose to feature one product per day. (by Demand Curve) 10) Consider launching on the weekend if you don't have a large following or don't want to cooperate with a successful hunter. There's much less competition on the weekend. (by jacobp) 11) We’ve found that products that make it to the bottom of the front page can expect over 2,000 unique visitors on launch day. Products that hit the #1 spot can gain over 10,000 uniques. (by Demand Curve) 12) Never buy upvotes. On Product Hunt, the quality of upvotes is more important than quantity. (by jacobp) 13) 3-steps promotion of your launch: 1) Send an email to all your beta testers to announce that you are on PH, 2) Reach out individually to people who had previously showed support to your product, 3) Reach out to people who could give you access to a bigger audience (community owners, managers, admins). (by Guillaume Moubeche) 14) Be prepared to do support. When doing a successful launch on Product Hunt you really need to be prepared to answer questions all day and all night. (by Guillaume Moubeche) 15) Don’t forget to connect analytics to your product before launch. (by Volodymyr) 16) Distribution channels for announcing Product Hunt launch: Indie Hackers, Reddit, LinkedIn, Facebook, Polywork, Slack, Discord, Hacker News. (by Sveta Bay) 17) Start promoting your product before the Product Hunt launch. That's right. You can build in public, create content, outreach people. But do it before the Product Hunt launch. This way, you will validate the initial idea and get social proof. (by Dan Kulkov) 18) If you follow the best practice to launch at 9:01 (CEE time), to have the most time to harvest upvotes, you won’t know what your competition is. I haven’t yet launched a product midday in order to check the competition first but from my current experience, I would say it is wiser to go for “no-frill” launch rather than an “all-in” launch. (by Fabian Maume) 19) PH is great for creating a buzz but many people explore your product for the first time and also the last time. That’s why it's a good idea to put those visitors in a position where they need to decide immediately with a limited offer. It's the reason why limited, lifetime deals are successful on PH. (by Ivan Homola) 20) Product Hunt penalizes people that create an account the same day they also upvote. So whoever should support you, needs to have already an account or create it prior to the launch + engage with it. (by Markus Jenul) 21) Always work with a hunter that really fits you and that might become a user of your product as well. It doesn’t make sense to work with a hunter that has a lot of followers interested in finance while you are promoting a marketing product. (by Markus Jenul) 22) The toughest competition is on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Be sure you have a launch strategy before posting on these days. Without a strategy, you cannot be featured in the TOP 5 products of the day. (by jacobp) 23) PH users love a good deal. Feel free to include a special promotion or offer in your opening comment. These special launch day offers can increase engagement, help capture people’s attention, and encourage people to try what you’re working on (e.g. 20% off for 6 months). (by Product Hunt) 24) Let visitors to your website know that you’ve been posted on Product Hunt. You can include a badge to directly link visitors to your post on Product Hunt. (by Product Hunt) 25) Conversation is important. To get the discussion going and solicit feedback, ASK. Let the community know what kind of input you’re looking for. Products that have active conversations generate more interest and tend to do well overall. (by Product Hunt)