5 best hacks to boost your Product Hunt launch (don't miss no. 1 hack)

Getting on top of Product Hunt is becoming difficult. Many great products launch on a daily basis. Here are my best 5 hacks that will help you succeed on the launch day. These hacks are a part of my Product Hunt launch checklist and some are taken from Fabian - a nice growth hacker.

Product Hunt Launch Checklist is live on Product Hunt today. Please support it there. Also, get a 20% off coupon too.

1. Promote your Product Hunt launch on LinkedIn

LinkedIn wisdom usually recommends avoiding posting twice on the same day. The LinkedIn algorithm tends to lower the reach of your first post if you post a second time within the same day. According to Fabian's experiments, during his last 16th product hunt launches, he experimented with single posts vs. double posts format. The average reach of single posts is indeed higher: https://i.imgur.com/YoOqcnr.png However, if we compare the total view during the day (by summing the view of each double post): the double post format is over-performing by far: https://i.imgur.com/5ewYVgl.png Posting twice within the day is getting 30% more views than posting only once. Moreover, posting twice in the day allows you to play across time zones. With the dual post format, Fabian post the first time at 9:01 AM (Prague) right after the launch. It is the perfect time for my European contacts and helps him get initial traction on Product Hunt. He then publishes a second post around 3 PM (Prague time) which corresponds to the morning on the US east coast. He also found out that sharing a screenshot of the launch dashboard works well for the 2nd post of the day, as shown below: https://i.imgur.com/YLDAe8S.png

2. Post at exactly 12:01 AM PST

Product Hunt servers are located in the PST time zone (GMT-8), so the new day starts exactly at 12:00 am PST. To get the maximum exposure on Product Hunt, launch it at 12:01 am. This has multiple benefits. 1. Your product gets a full 24h exposure. 2. It gets maximum exposure at the start of the day. This brings more upvotes and helps your product get into the top 5 products. 3. It gets exposure to the European audience as well. On the other hand, if you launch at 08:00 am PST (when the US is awake), getting into the Top 5 products is almost impossible unless you have a great product and support. P.S. You can also schedule the Product Hunt launch as well.

3. Ask a question on the day of the launch

Product Hunt changed its notification system recently. The followers of a hunter won’t get email notification when the hunter launch a new product. This is part of the push of Product hunt to encourage makers to hunt their own products. However, followers will still get an in-app notification on Product Hunt: There is still one way to send an email notification to your product hunt followers: ask a question. When you ask a question, most of your followers will receive an email notification about it. So on every launch, Fabian asks a question related to the product he is hunting and includes a post-scriptum at the end mentioning that he is hunting a product today. Here is an example of his post when hunting Crawlee: https://i.imgur.com/RQ657ja.png He likes to include surveys in the questions I’m asking, but this hack will work well even without a survey. He also usually reuses the same question to create a post on Indie Hackers and leverage his follower base there. With this hack, he advises putting time into thinking about your question. Questions like “We are launching today!” are spammy. He recommends avoiding them.

4. Prepare answers to anticipated questions

Generally, people compare your product with other products so they will ask how your product is better than XYZ or other questions like - Show us your roadmap. - Will my data be secure? - Can you help us migrate from XYZ to your platform? - Any chance of integrating with Intercom this year? - Your pricing is high. - I would like to do some partnership with you. - Are there any plans for mobile? and many others.

5. Connect with other Product Hunt users before launching

Being connected to a few people who are active on Product Hunt before your launch is a good idea. There are 2 easy ways to find a list of people active on Product Hunt: 1. Check out Upvotebell for the topic related to your product 2. Extract a list of people who upvoted similar products to your product. Phantombuster has automation to extract the last 18 upvoters of any product. Use it too. ------

Product Hunt Launch Checklist is live on Product Hunt today. Please support it there. Also, get a 20% off coupon too.

Replies

Abraham Samma
This tip about posting at 12am PST is so widespread and well known that I feel like @producthunt could do us all a solid by automating it for us instead of leaving users with the burden of timing it themselves. @askproducthunt why hasn't this feature been implemented? It would be one heck of a time saver and booster.
Nolwenn Duval
Nice stats. Thanks for sharing
Nerijus
OpenQR - QR Generator
OpenQR - QR Generator
Thanks a lot! I will try to apply these hacks to my project also :)
@nerijuso looking forward to the results
Leena Chitnis
RuffRest® Ultimate Dog Bed
RuffRest® Ultimate Dog Bed
hey how do i get a hold of you? i have a launch on sept 19th!!
Leena Chitnis
RuffRest® Ultimate Dog Bed
RuffRest® Ultimate Dog Bed
Great and precise tips Falak, thanks!
@chitterz you are awesome
Leena Chitnis
RuffRest® Ultimate Dog Bed
RuffRest® Ultimate Dog Bed
@falak_sher how do i contact you on this doggone site?
Sidra Arif
These are some of the best tips regarding product launches. Thanks @falak_sher
Moon
ReplyMind
ReplyMind
Thanks for sharing these valuable tips!
@moon10 glad to know you liked them
When we launched AiToolsKit.ai (Productive AI, Seo, Writing, Social media & Marketing Tools all-in-one platform) on Product hunt, our biggest challenge was that we had no social following, not a big team to do marketing, not so much brand authority, still we did it because products quality were our main focus and still too we are focusing to make it better day by day. As most of our products are AI enabled so we used the same strategy to make our products unique and better. This is how we could get some traction even without 0 following.
Ruvim Rubish
Thank you for sharing!
Nina Austria | Afforai
thanks for sharing, Falak!
AbdulHafeez Sadon
Extensive suggestions and pro tips right here. Thanks Falak!
@hafeezcae exactly 💯
Carlos Rodrigues
Thank you for sharing your valuable insights!