First Product Hunt Launch: #1 Product of the Day

This week I oversaw my first Product Hunt launch. Over the past weeks I have been reading countless blogs and Indie Hacker posts with best practices. I wanted to share a quick brain dump of what I did. This group has been so valuable and I am always happy to answer questions or help with your upcoming launch.

My background is in events, I've never launched a software product before. Normally I am marketing and selling tickets to dessert festivals, a pretty easy sell, so it was daunting thinking how to differentiate and make a splash with Mixily's new Virtual Venue product. On February 9th we scored #1 product of the day with 1110 upvotes and 131 comments.
https://www.producthunt.com/posts/virtual-venue-by-mixily

Here's what I did:

1 month before

• Built a community of early users, created a Slack channel to share product updates and for them to easily ask questions or give feedback. This community of our active early users proved so valuable in helping us spread the word.
• Increased my personal Product Hunt point value by being active on PH. Commenting is worth more than voting, so spent time in the weeks before upping my profile points. Ask teammates to do the same.

1 week before

• Sent early access invite to waitlist, select community groups, and friends to start using product
• Posted a life update on social with invite to early access. I shared on my LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook and it was a great opportunity to reconnect with people. My LinkedIn post had over 3000 impressions and it ended up reaching new leads outside of my network who contacted me. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/mirayaberke_events-eventmanagement-virtualevent-activity-6763528938527571968-_COr

1-2 Days Before

• Newsletter to current customers about upcoming Product Hunt and ask to create account if they don't have one already
• 1:1 emails to beta testers, early access, active users, friends, family letting them know the launch is coming up

Day Of

I made a check list with tasks and broke them out in sections of the day, it helped me stay focused and not get overwhelmed by crossing off one at a time.
AM

• Send newsletter
• Slack groups
• Indie Hackers
• Facebook groups
• IG Live with active users
• Clubhouse talk
• Active users shared about the launch on their IG stories
• Message everyone who got early access to see how they liked it and if they have Product Hunt account

AFTERNOON

• LinkedIn groups
• Reddit

EVE

• Text reminders to friends
• Twitter DMs to people who follow or are in same list as like Indie Hacker Women
• We were #2 until right at the end when we pulled ahead to #1 and I think it was due to the comments. Our users shared really kind and in depth comments and as the makers we replied and answered questions, boosting our engagement.

Posting Learnings

• Posted right at at 12:01 am
• Have group of friends and family ready to upvote and comment immediately when the post goes live
• Comments are important and replying as the maker counts towards comments.
• The more active a person is on Product Hunt, the more valuable their vote is. We had more votes for a while but were in 2nd place I think because more of our votes were from new people who just made an account
• They say to not to ask for upvotes, we asked for support and feedback. Asked active users to share comments with their experience
• 24 hours is long! Our team all felt delirious at the end. We all jumped on a call (in our Virtual Venue) and listened to music and danced around to celebrate. It was fun and important to celebrate our accomplishment of #1

Good luck with your Product Hunt launch!