[Notes] How are we preparing for Product Hunt

Today, I'll share my preparation in advance of our Paperless.io Product Hunt launch on 23 February. Hopefully, Product Hunt is familiar to all of you, right? If you’re unfamiliar with it, this post may help.

Note: Many makers and founders have already done this kind of post, but I still hope you'll take something away from it. Let me know in the comments what you think...🤔

One to two months before launch

Introduce yourself

A couple of months ago, we got back into Indie Hackers and Product Hunt. As part of this, we joined discussions, created posts and tried to add value, engage members and ask good questions.

We noticed that PH loves products and wants to learn everything that can help them a) launch better or b) market better. And makers are always looking for ways to improve their products.

Posts that inspire people to talk about their own stuff work the best. We also used that time to get inspiration from successful launches on PH and make notes on what works.

A support network on Product Hunt can help you gain visibility and build rapport. Active Product Hunter upvotes are more important than upvotes from newbies. We joined other communities, but our main focus was on Product Hunt and IndieHackers, probably because we have only limited resources

• Indie Hackers (obviously 😅)
• Makerlog
• Product Led Slack Group
• Product School
• Product Hunters on Reddit

Introduce your product

We already had our landing page set up and accepted early access to Paperless. Additionally, we did a lot of PR and outreach in these communities, asking for feedback and letting people test it. We also interviewed existing users for their feedback on Jobs-to-Be-Done. Last but not least, we started growing our pre-launch mailing list.

In our case, we thought by building in public and being transparent about our journey, the product might already be familiar to other founders, making it easier for them to support us. After people give you feedback on your product, they feel invested and like active contributors, so they want to see you succeed.
One to two weeks before launch

Preparation for the launch

It's normal to look for a hunter months before, but we waited until one week before. Remember that convincing an influential hunter isn't as important as it used to be, but you can still get a lot of quality votes which will boost your rank on PH.

Launching on the right day is also important. Not every day is the same on Product Hunt. On PH, it seems like Tuesday is the most competitive day, but Wednesday, Thursday and Monday are also pretty competitive. We went against the weekend. While it's easier to get to #1, traffic is significantly lower.

We blocked our core team's calendars a day before launch and a day after so we could respond to feedback, answer questions, and boost the launch.

Well-known hunters:

• Kevin William David
• Chris Messina
• Ben Tossell
• Hiten Shah
• Ben Lang
• Bram Kanstein
• Michael Sieb

With a hunter in place and a launch date picked, we could finally prepare marketing activities.

Preparation of marketing activities

It's always better to prepare before you do anything. Our email announcing the launch to our list, our social media posts, and our announcement in communities were all planned in advance.

In Google Sheets, we made a master plan and everyone made a list of friends and family to contact. I also prepared a Google Sheet with copy examples that our team could just grab and send on launch day.

In addition, I assigned responsibilities and tasks within my team, like having our Head of Product answer questions and comments on Product Hunt on launch day. One of our staff members will be on social media before, during, and after the launch, and everyone will be promoting to their own networks.

I also wrote a brief for our designer to create some assets that showcase Paperless.io. Because people love seeing products in action, we decided to make a video showing the Why, How & What of Paperless.

Few days before the launch

Pre-launch activities should ensure that you:

• Don't miss a minute of your launch
• Don’t miss an opportunity because of a scheduling time error, a bug, or something else
• Don’t waste time on launch day fixing bugs, setting promotions, etc.

Your team needs to be engaged with your audience every minute of launch day. Automate the rest as much as you can.

Launch Day (Still To Be Done)

If you are launching on a day that is highly competitive like Tuesday or Thursday, try to get a good night's sleep before. Ensure enough visibility for your product by launching it at 12.01 am PST.

Use social media to spread the word about your launch, but don't spam or ask for upvotes. You can simply ask for feedback or advice.

The PH launch page will be a super important place for you to hang out on launch day. Make sure you reply to each comment fast, answer every question and engage with your audience. Positive first impressions matter.

Mid-Day & Late Boost (Still To Be Done)

We're not really there yet, but we'll send out an email to all early subscribers asking for support. We'll also share social media updates with a good reason to support us. Here we share insights about our launch, traffic, new customers, trials, and anything else that's worth celebrating or is useful. Obviously, we'll re-share and re-tweet if Product Hunt tweets about Paperless.io.

We’ll do the same towards the end of the day and use that as an opportunity to also check any unanswered comments on Product Hunt.

Post Launch (Still To Be Done)

[ ] Send a “Thank You” email to our email subscribers
[ ] Share our final result on social media and include it in the “Thank You” email
[ ] Write a quick blog post for Indie Hackers about our launch, share insights and add value

Don’t Forget (Still To Be Done)

[ ] Add the product to Product Hunt Collections for extra evergreen visibility
[ ] Suggest Paperless.io as an alternative to similar products
[ ] Keep being active on PH, upvote, comment and discuss.

Hope this is somewhat useful. I will update this article with any additional lessons learned and also share metrics once we're live on the 23rd.

PS: If you want to support us, we currently have our Upcoming Product Page live with a little incentive for IndieHackers & Product Hunters.