Product Hunt Launch Playbook

Product Hunt is a game.

A game that can be won. Seriously.

In the past 2 years I have launched products that have finished

🏆 #1 product of the day (x2)
🥇 #1 product of the week
😺 Golden Kitty award winner

Here is the exact playbook that makes this possible:

Build an audience ahead of time
This is the cheat code.

Unfortunately (or fortunately), coming into a Product Hunt launch with an existing audience is the single most beneficial thing you can do. All of the top products have this.

Our most recent launch allowed us to email our newsletter audience (12,000+) as well as our current customers & remaining waitlist (thousands).

Your audience is full of super fans waiting to support you in any way they can.

Don't spam
Everyone hates DM spam. Don't do it. It doesn't work and will only generate negative feelings towards your product.

Ask for support
Don't ask for upvotes. Ask for support. Same thing, different word.

Launch at 12:01am PST
The PH leaderboard is a 24 hour contest. Give yourself the most amount of time possible to climb the rankings.

Create unique launch assets
A launch video and thoughtful screenshots that were created solely for PH go a long way.

Our launch video was so popular that we received multiple DMs throughout the day asking who created it.

The details matter.

First comment
Write a thoughtful first comment that tells your story and engages the PH audience. This is one of the first things a PH user will see.

Find a hunter
While this isn't as important as it once was it definitely doesn't hurt. I had the luck of Chris Messina (38,000+ PH followers) hunting both products.

Reply to every comment
Comments count similarly to upvotes. Reply to as many comments as humanly possible in an authentic way.

This is also a great place to ask for feedback!

Email your current audience
I stated above just how important building an audience ahead of time is. It's absolutely crucial. Below tweet link has some of the emails we sent to our audience to notify them of the launch (sent right at 12:01 am as well).

Link directly to your launch page in everything
You used to be penalized for linking directly to your launch page. No more. Make it as easy as possible for your audience to support you by giving them the direct link.

Track your launch
Product Hunt currently randomizes the leaderboard for the first 4 hours of the day. But you don't need to wonder how things are going.

Use Product Wars to visualize how you are faring in the early hours.

(You'll notice our big spike right at the start. Do not wait to engage your audience. A hot start is important to being at the top after the 4 hour random leaderboard solidifies into the true standings. Casual PH users may not scroll past the first few products each day.)

Be authentic
PH users are smart. They can see right through grifters, BS, or otherwise inauthentic people/launches.

Be yourself in the comments.

Tweet updates
Twitter loves a good PH launch and PH makes it easy to share updates. Keep your followers in the loop with how things are going with hard numbers, graphs, etc.

Don't sleep
Half joking here. But if you were ever going to pull an all-nighter this is the time.

Drink some water too while you're at it.

Have fun
At the end of the day a PH launch will not make or break your product. Do not stress over the little things. This is just one marketing lever you should be pulling.

Here is the tweet thread with images/screenshots of actual emails and graphs from launch day: https://twitter.com/rjgilbert/status/1705259943480173040

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I think that's it! Following these simple rules won't guarantee a #1 finish but it certainly won't hurt.

Questions or comments? Reply and let me know! 😀