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🏴‍☠️ Product Hack

A brief story on how to win the "Product of the Day" badge from Product Hunt and, most importantly, why you should.
"Those who don't boost their votes are left with unboosted votes."

— J. Statham

📣 Disclaimer

  • Everything described here is based on my own experience from successfully launching just TWO products. So, there's always a chance this is simply survivor bias.
  • This method worked for us in May 2023 (with Immigram) and again in February 2024 (the product name and all my ties with it are under NDA), when following the steps outlined here, we managed to earn the coveted "Product of the Day" badge with different teams, and even made it into the year-end top lists. Whether it still works today—I don’t know.
  • If you have the misfortune of launching on the same day as Apple, Notion, Loom, or other market leaders, wipe your tears, accept it, and try again in six months.
  • Some may say, "It's not fair to boost votes! A good product will get its deserved recognition." At this point, you should ask yourself whether you want to play by the rules almost all successful unknown product launches follow, or stick to being a D'Artagnan.

🫵🏽 Why Do You Need This?

I've often come across comments saying that getting the "Product of the Day" title holds little to no value. But personally, I found two answers to the question "Why?"
Depending on your launch goal, your strategy can (and should) differ.
Goal 1: To gain users for your service.

👍🏽 Pros:
  • You don’t necessarily need to finish in the top three.

👎🏽 Cons:
  • You're unlikely to find paying users on the platform, especially if your product costs more than $7-8 or is not IT-related.
Goal 2: To get the badge to show investors.

👍🏽 Pros:
  • The "Product of the Day" badge sounds like a great achievement, potentially boosting your startup’s investment appeal.

👎🏽 Cons:
  • This is only potential. Some companies shut down soon after earning the coveted badge.
  • You’ll need to work hard to beat the competition.

⏰ When to Start Preparing?

Do I really need to prepare for this? If you want to launch effectively, then yes.
I recommend starting preparation at least two weeks before your planned launch. During this time, you'll need to do the following:
  • Read the official launch guide on Product Hunt.
  • Create maker accounts on the platform. Your product can be represented by multiple makers, but I’d recommend no more than three, as there are rumors (unverified) that their votes carry less weight.
  • Gather a chat group of friends/colleagues/brand fans—people ready to support your launch in the first few minutes and hours.
  • Register everyone in that chat on Product Hunt (at least two weeks before launch) and have them engage daily by liking and commenting on other launches.
  • Choose the most suitable Hunter for your needs and agree on a launch date and terms with them.
  • Reach out to influencers who can support your launch on social media.
  • Create a list of relevant Telegram, Facebook, and VK channels, and contact their admins to ask for launch support. Explain how your launch will benefit their followers (no BS), and if you’re polite, most admins won’t refuse free support.
  • Announce your launch plans on your social media, explaining why it’s important. Your followers might offer help, and you can add them to your loyal support chat. Don’t forget to post on LinkedIn—it has a great conversion rate.
  • Prepare the product page content, description, and your welcome comment.

🤷🏼‍♀️ Do We Need a Hunter?

There’s a debate on social media about whether you need a Hunter or if they’re just a useless part of your launch. Even the official PH guide suggests they’re unnecessary.
But in my opinion, even if they’re not super helpful, they certainly won’t hurt. If you partner with a popular Hunter, there’s a good chance you’ll get an upvote from some of their followers, maybe even dozens. So I’m all for launching with a popular Hunter, especially since it doesn’t cost anything (except maybe half an hour of emailing).

👯‍♀️ Who to Hunt With?

You can go with a top Hunter (if you want the badge) or find someone whose audience is most relevant to you (if you’re looking to gain users).
The first time, I launched with Kevin William David, and when he agreed to help us for free, I was genuinely surprised.
The second time, I got bold and reached out to the platform's most popular Hunter, Chris Messina. Surprisingly, you can also partner with him for free. However, he might suggest a paid consultation, which costs $549 per hour.
Contacting Hunters is pretty straightforward. On the popular Hunters’ page on Product Hunt, there’s usually a preferred contact method listed. In my first email, I described our product and how honored we would be to launch with them.

📆 When to Launch?

Here’s a chart of platform activity by day of the week, which also correlates with the number of launches.
If your goal is to attract more users, launch on days with the highest activity (Tuesday and Wednesday).
But if you’re after the badge, it makes sense to choose a day with fewer potential competitors. We launched on a Friday and managed to take first place with fewer likes than what would have been required for a win on Wednesday or Thursday.

🖼️ What Content to Prepare?

  • If we believe the stats (and who are we not to?), products that feature a short, captivating video (like a product demo) as the first in the preview lineup get the most likes. Be sure to add a thumbnail for this video, as it will be displayed on your product page on launch day. Keep in mind that PH will place a big play button in the center of this image, so it’s better to position all important information toward the edges of the frame.
  • 3-5 eye-catching images showcasing your product’s WOW features. These don’t have to be screenshots. Think of them more like slides from your pitch deck for investors—minimalism, and concise messaging.
  • An animated logo for your product? Why animated? Because, again, according to stats, they convert better into clicks and upvotes.
  • A very brief description. Summarize what your product does in one short sentence.
  • A slightly longer description. Use 2-3 sentences to explain how great your service is.
  • A full description that will be your first comment on the post. Here, go into detail about how your service will benefit PH visitors and solve their problems. Best practice: break the text into logical blocks, include calls to leave feedback, comments, and encourage people to try your product, and sprinkle in a reasonable amount of emojis.
In the Figma community, there’s a guide you can use to pre-format all your mockups for the platform’s layout.

🤝 Who Will Help You

In short, everyone should know about your launch. Here’s a rundown of communication channels I used.
IT Chats and Communities
As mentioned earlier, various communities and IT-adjacent channels are usually quite willing to share your launch with their audience, especially if you’re not trying to pass off something terrible as something great. These channels are beneficial because they often include people who have been registered on PH for a while, and their votes won’t trigger the algorithms to suspect bought traffic.
It’s a good idea to notify the admins of these channels in advance about your planned launch date so they can schedule a post. It doesn’t hurt to remind them on launch day as well.
Here’s a list of Telegram communities (most of them are Russian, sorry) and channels whose admins were kind to me and our launch:
Upvote Chats and Communities
This is a separate category of groups of people who gather with the common goal of supporting each other on PH. I’m not a representative sample, but after my launch, I continued responding to calls for support in these communities for about a week before I got tired of it and muted notifications. Still, you might gain a few extra upvotes from these sources.
There’s no need to announce your plans in advance here. It’s better to post in these communities immediately after the race for votes begins.
Makers of Recent PH Launches
Those who have launched on PH understand how important this can be for others and are often happy to click on your launch link, upvote, and leave comments.
So, it’s worth taking the time to find the social media profiles of people who have launched recently and message them. LinkedIn is the easiest place to find them, and you definitely don’t need to ask them for support on PH itself.
I strongly recommend preparing a spreadsheet with links to Makers in advance so you can quickly reach out to them on launch day.
Influencers and Media
If you have the resources (money, connections) to get coverage by influencers with a large audience or on a well-known online portal, don’t miss the opportunity.
It might sound obvious, but the audience of your chosen influencers and media should be somewhat related to IT. On the one hand, followers of a beauty blog might not appreciate your startup (no offense intended), and on the other, we need an audience that already has a PH account (new users’ votes might be flagged as suspicious).
Users of Your Product
If you’re not showing a complete MVP and already have users, ask them to help with your important launch. Send them an in-app notification with a clickable link, pin a post in the content section of your app, or as a last resort, send an email.
There's no particular reason to segment your most loyal audience, since Product Hunt doesn’t have a downvote option.

🙅🏽 What Not to Do?

According to Product Hunt’s policy, you are not allowed to explicitly ask people to “vote for your product.” There are rumors that, in rare cases, Product Hunt admins might trace the source of traffic for leading products and check that the call to action doesn’t explicitly ask for votes. Acceptable phrases include: “support the product,” “check out this new service,” “help the development team,” and so on.

🔔 What Else to Remember?

  • Ensure your product is stable, ready for increased traffic, and that any paywalls are functioning correctly.
  • In your loyalist chat, remind everyone daily to visit Product Hunt and engage with the platform by liking or commenting on other products. Ideally, everyone in your chat should earn some badges from the platform for their activity.
  • Create promo codes for those who find you on Product Hunt. Everyone loves promo codes, and they can drive more traffic. Plus, by tracking activated codes, you can understand which audience segment came from Product Hunt.
  • Assign launch day tasks to your team members to ensure everything runs smoothly.

🚀 Launch Day!

The race for the coveted badge starts at 12:01 am Pacific Time, which is especially convenient for those in Europe who prefer to sleep at night.
By the time the launch begins, make sure your Hunter is aware of the launch and has all the necessary materials.
Your team should also be ready, as your primary goal in the first 2-3 hours is to secure a strong lead in votes. A higher ranking early on increases your visibility in the daily top, attracting more attention, which in turn converts to even more organic upvotes.
Getting a solid lead over your competitors early on is 50% of your launch success!
"It's better to be first right away than not to be first right away."

— J. Statham
I created a plan of action for myself, with a lot of different activities at the start, which is why I recommend doing this as a team effort. Assign roles for who will respond to comments and push influencers, who will post in upvote communities and ensure notifications are sent to users, and who will order coffee for the office.
Time, PST Task
11:30 am Remind influencers about the upcoming launch
11:50 am Worry while waiting for the launch and hope the hunter didn’t mess up
12:01:00 am Product launch
12:01:10 am Post a pre-prepared first comment inviting people to try the product and leave comments
12:03 am Posts in all upvote communities
12:05 am Post on all possible personal social media about launching on PH. Include a clickable link and a call to check out our product and leave feedback.
12:05 - 1:20 am A pre-prepared loyal audience moves to PH, upvotes, and starts engaging in comments. Try to comment in a way that doesn’t look like a chatbot conversation. It’s better if the comments contain substantial questions about your product, answers to which will reveal more awesome features.
12:10 am The same loyal audience posts in their social media stories or posts with a clickable link and a call to support
12:15 am Send notifications about the launch and a request for support to service users
12:45 am Reach out to all makers of other products launched in the last 2-3 weeks
1:15 pm Remind influencers and media once again that you expect them to post
4:00-5:00 pm Repeat stories by influencers, employees, loyal community members
8:00-9:00 pm And one more round of stories
Ongoing Makers respond to comments and encourage the audience to actively discuss (anything)
Ongoing Everyone likes each other's comments
Ongoing Monitor comments on social media, engage with the audience
That’s pretty much it. Enjoy the launch and keep an eye on the dashboard. Don’t forget to check occasionally that your service isn’t down from the increased traffic. Good luck!

🍏 One more thing:

If you're planning to launch on Product Hunt and didn’t find answers to your questions in this guide, feel free to message me on Telegram. I’d be happy to help with your launch, or at the very least, give you an extra upvote.
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