Two weeks ago I got banned mid-launch. Tomorrow ChannelScout will go live on Product Hunt. Here's what changed.
If you've been following along here on IH, you know the arc.
April 24 I posted about getting permabanned from Reddit during my first ChannelScout launch because I went on vacation. Three posts auto-removed in minutes, account locked, appeal ignored, gone. I cried. Reddit had been the channel that got Stamp'd to 300 users. Losing it on launch day for ChannelScout felt like losing both products at once.
May 1 I posted what I was actually doing about it. 5 days from a real PH launch. Kevin William David confirmed as hunter. $69 in Reddit ad spend learning out loud. 2 paying users. A clear list of what I was relying on instead of Reddit.
Tomorrow's the day ChannelScout goes live on Product Hunt. The 6-week build, the banned-Reddit recovery, the soft launches, the dev.to drip, the PH listing prep, all the pre-dawn mornings. They all funnel into the next 24 hours.
Here's what the launch morning actually looks like, in case it helps anyone else who's coming up on theirs.
12:01 AM PT: listing goes live. Self-upvote. Screenshot the "rank: pending" moment because you only get to take that screenshot once.
12:30 AM PT: announcement tweet from @ChannelScoutHQ, pinned. Surfacing the LAUNCH50 deal (50% off the Launch Pack).
12:35 AM PT: reply on a #BuiltWithClaude thread I started May 2. The whole product was built with the Claude suite (Code on Opus, Sonnet 4.6 in-app, Cowork for cron jobs, Claude.ai for unblocking myself). I want that visible.
1 AM-ish: DMs to my Reddit warm list (the 20-25 people I've been thoughtful with all week). Pacing 5-7 per 15 minutes because my account is technically unbanned but technically also still stamped with a black mark and I'd rather not test it on launch day.
6 AM PT: the launch-day email goes out to every wizard signup who never finished. Single send, not a blast. Built it as a cron over the weekend; tested with a dry-run yesterday (11 recipients, internal accounts auto-filtered). One try. If it doesn't work I don't get a second one.
Throughout the day: reply to every PH comment within 1-2 hours. Drop the LAUNCH50 deal where natural. Don't beg.
The ask, the honest version: if you've ever sat at your desk after shipping and felt the silence, this is the tool I built for that moment. Drop your URL into the wizard, you get a ranked Launch Blueprint of where your users actually hang out, plus a 30-day roadmap sized to your real hours. The Brand Guide is free, even if you don't check out.
If it's interesting, please show some support. Comments and upvotes both. Comments matter more than upvotes for the algorithm; questions and pushback are welcome too. Here's the PH link: https://www.producthunt.com/products/channelscout?launch=channelscout
If you have your own launch coming up and want to compare notes on what's working and what's not, drop it below. The honest stories are still the ones that actually help.
Whatever happens tomorrow, two things stay true: I built the thing I wished I'd had when I was launching Stamp'd, and the founders here who've shared their own messy stories with me are part of why I made it through the Reddit-ban week without quitting.
Sarah (channelscout.co. Stamp'd is still at adventure-seeker.com if you're curious.)
