Hey there,

Before I start today's issue, I'd like to personally thank the 32 new founders who recently joined us to be part of this journey!
If you aren’t subscribed, join founders growing their businesses by subscribing here.

In this week’s issue:

• 🤿 Learn how to reach #1 on Product Hunt launch.

• 🪓 Learn successful pre-launch and Product Hunt strategies.

Reading time: 10 minutes

🤿
The Dive Deep

Learn practical methods

Product Hunt is a gold mine for getting new customers. If you rank high, you can even generate about 10,000 unique visits and 1000-3000 genuine leads for your business.

Let’s discover how you can achieve #1 product and make the most out of this!

Product Hunt's user base primarily consists of tech enthusiasts, early adopters, investors, journalists, and fellow entrepreneurs. This can help you get reach, test your product easily and get feedback quickly.

Please support me now by upvoting Founder Notes on Product Hunt!

Why should you care about Product Hunt?

Product Hunt can provide you with these incredible benefits:

• Traction:

  This exposure can lead to an increase in signups, downloads, and sales.

• SEO ranking boost:

  Product Hunt ranking can indirectly boost SEO by increasing visibility and traffic and generating high-quality backlinks. 

• Funding interest:

  A successful Product Hunt launch can catch the attention of angel investors, venture capitalists, and other funding sources.

• Validation:

  The buzz also demonstrates that your product resonates with users providing validation of your product's value proposition and market fit.

• Social Proof:

  You get to add a Product Hunt widget on your website about your rank which makes your potential users trust it more.

• Awareness:

  Ranking high on Product Hunt will generate traction towards your product and brand, leading to increased media coverage, mentions on social media, and word-of-mouth referrals.

• Feedback:

  Product Hunt's active community can provide invaluable feedback on your product, helping you identify strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement

• Opportunities:

  Ranking high on Product Hunt can unlock additional opportunities such as being featured in the Product Hunt newsletter, winning a Golden Kitty Award, and more.

What does ranking high mean?

Product Hunt ranks products based on user upvotes and engagement. Products that hit the #1 spot can also gain over 10,000 unique visits.

Though these numbers may not appear extraordinary, keep in mind the conversion rates are strong due to the fact that Product Hunt’s audience are early adopters of innovations.

If you rank high, expect around 1,000-3,000 genuine leads for your business from ten thousand website visits.

Depending upon your product, set up goals for your launch and then start working on your strategy. Determine specific goals for your Product Hunt launch, such as a target number of upvotes, comments, or new users. Setting goals will help you measure the success of your launch and inform future strategies.

Developing a comprehensive plan

Let’s keep a goal of finding 500 people that can help you succeed on PH. This is a good average number of leads that’ll get your product in top 5 of the day.

Pre-Launch:

Focus on building momentum, preparing promotional materials, and building a community of people interested in your product. They will be your first supporters.

Day of Launch:

Submit your product early in the day, promote it across various channels, and actively engage with users on Product Hunt by replying to comments and addressing feedback.

Post-Launch:

Analyse the results of your launch, thank your supporters, work on their feedback, and continue to engage with your new users to foster long-term relationships.

Do you need a hunter?

When launching on Product Hunt, it's worth considering a hunter, but it's not a must. You can self-submit, and many successful products have done just that. Not having a hunter also means less collaboration management during a busy launch.

However, hunters bring experience, networking, and community engagement benefits. They know the platform, have industry connections, and can boost your product's visibility. Still, the choice to use one is personal, and going without a hunter is a valid option if you're well-prepared for a self-submission strategy.

Personally, I wouldn’t go with a hunter.

Choosing a launch date

Select a strategic date & time to maximize engagement and visibility. Numerous variables affect your launch, many of which are uncontrollable, so there's no guaranteed formula for success.

• Weekdays (especially Tuesday & Thursday) on the other hand has highest competition which gives you high traffic with 15% more "Visit" button clicks.

• Although, weekends usually have less competition which makes it easier to rank #1 but it also gets less traffic.

Leverage traction on platforms like Twitter to boost your Product Hunt launch.

As a rule of thumb, schedule your launch for 12:01 am PST to maximize visibility for a full 24 hours.

Product Hunt has recently started hiding the voted and showing all products for the first 4 hours. This gives all the products, equal opportunity to get the traction who can test out the product. If your product is really good, the organic traffic itself will drive the upvotes and your chances of being first will be increased.

Choose a launch time that aligns with your goals and maximizes your product's visibility and engagement.

Developing assets that grabs attention and convert users

Now let’s breakdown how you can create eye-catching visuals, descriptions, and a compelling tagline for your product listing.

• Title: Just use the name of your product without using emojis or descriptions in the title.

• Tagline: Add a very short description of the product. Write an attention grabbing tagline that also explains your product’s value prop.

• Description: This space is perfect for elaborating on your product's purpose and functionality. Make sure to keep it brief while still highlighting your unique selling points and features.

• Thumbnail: Consider using a captivating 240x240 image that catches the eye.

  • Animated GIFs can make for engaging visuals, but be wary of making them too busy.

  • Alternatively, you can never go wrong with showcasing your standard logo, as it is a simple yet effective way to grab viewers' attention.

• Images/GIFs: Images and GIFs are crucial for showcasing your product on Product Hunt, with the recommended size being 1270x760.

  • Your first image is especially vital as it becomes the preview card on social networks, so ensure it's high-quality.

  • Focus on clear, concise visuals that emphasize your product's value rather than features, and make sure they are mobile-friendly for better accessibility to a wider audience.

• Videos: Two types of assets work best:

  • Video demonstrations showing a product's capabilities

  • A product walk-through by the maker

• First comment: Be sure to kick off the conversation with a comment about the product. Ask for feedback, thoughts about it or simply just questions they might have.

  • This is a very important part of your launch — 70% of products who achieved Product of the Day, Week, or Month had a first comment by the maker.

Pre-launch marketing strategy

A lot of makers hang-out on twitter. Building an audience there can really help having a successful launch. If you already have an audience, make sure you leverage it.

Overall things to take care of before you start

Quality of engagement:

Focus on upvotes from hunters and active Product Hunt members, as they carry more weight and influence. Engage with them to gain credibility and traction for your product. (Twitter can be a great leverage here)

Warm accounts vs cold accounts:

Focus on warming up leads by engaging with them before launch. Warm accounts carry more weight in upvotes and are more likely to be considered by Product Hunt.

Breaking down your pre-launch marketing strategy.

Let’s start with the most important thing!

I. Start gathering leads

Create an excel sheet and add all the people who will potentially support on the day of the launch so that you don’t have to think about it on the big day & highlight the people who have a network or a social distribution that can get you more traction.

This can include:

• Friends and family (Ask them to start using their product hunt account regularly to warm up their accounts if needed)

• Co-workers

• Social media followers

• People who upvoted similar products

  • Check who upvoted similar products on PH → Make a list of their twitter accounts → Interact with them

• Influencers you might know

• Email subscribers

• Whatsapp, Slack, discord, Facebook groups (& more)

• Accounts from the ‘coming soon’ page

You can check out upvote-bell. It allows you to download the list of people who upvoted a project and retrieve their Twitter usernames.

Use case: find a project in the same space as yours that was successful. Download the upvoters. DM them on your launch day.

II. Join communities:

Participate in Slack groups, WhatsApp groups, and Facebook groups related to your product niche or industry to build relationships and gain insights from fellow makers and entrepreneurs.

Here are a few groups you can start off with

• Indie hackers

• Invincible Product Hunters

• The product folks

• Add these leads in another sheet in your doc

III. Prepare the assets you want to send

You don’t want to spend any time on the day of the launch on anything you could have prepared beforehand! Prepare the following (You probably won’t get enough time to do it on the day of launch):

• Social media posts

  Content and images (Images should have the Product Hunt and your logo on them.)

• Messages & emails to send

Remember: You should not ask for upvotes directly. Not publicly and from people you barely or don’t know. Ask for support and feedback and if people like your project, you can be sure they will upvote.

IV. Write your maker comment and keep it ready

Write a detailed and thoughtful message to provide context, express gratitude, and answer potential questions from users and tell your story.

Launch Day 🚀

The big day has come!! Set up a dashboard using https://pw2.akkio.com/ helps you monitor how the launch is going and who are the top competitors.

Start following this list step by step:

1. Post your maker comment.

2. Send individual DMs to your Contact list.

   • Start with the highest potential conversions with warm accounts

   • Then send it to cold accounts

   (Make sure you send DMs little by little and not all at once to avoid spamming)

3. Send a message in the Slack, Whatsapp, Facebook groups you joined initially

4. Add a Product Hunt widget on your website to encourage visitors to upvote and engage with your product.

5. Engage with users by replying to comments and addressing feedback.

6. Post on all your social media accounts

7. Reach out to influencers you know

8. Send emails to your user base

And then start responding to the comments and feedback and hype up the social media buzz by interacting more.

Things to Avoid

There are certain practices that can harm your Product Hunt ranking and overall launch success:

• Spamming or artificially inflating upvotes: Product Hunt has measures in place to detect and penalize vote manipulation. Focus on providing genuine value and engaging with your audience to earn upvotes.

• Don’t ask for upvotes blatantly

Post-launch follow-ups

Analyze results, thank supporters, and address any outstanding feedback after the launch.

• If you manage to do all of the things mentioned above, you’ll probably hit the top five products of the day. This’ll give you a feature in the next day's Product Hunt digest email.

• Use feedback from users to iterate and improve your product.

• Add Product Hunt badges and embeds to your website and marketing materials to showcase your success and credibility.

• A lot of people will reach out to you on social media and other channels, make sure you either convert them to users or followers.

Conclusion:

While achieving the #1 spot on Product Hunt can provide significant benefits, it's essential not to lose sight of your long-term goals.

Don't get disheartened if you don't rank as high as you'd like; instead, use the experience to learn, iterate, and improve for future launches.

🪓
The Breakdown

Whereby: A launch driven by an awesome product

The platform aimed to simplify video conferencing by offering a browser-based solution without the need to install software or create user accounts. Whereby was designed to serve small businesses, remote teams, and individuals looking for a hassle-free video conferencing tool.

Pre-launch Strategy:

Before launching on Product Hunt, the Whereby team concentrated on developing a reliable and easy-to-use product that would meet the needs of their target audience. The pre-launch strategy included:

1. Building a browser-based, no-download video conferencing solution that allows users to create and join meetings with just a few clicks.

2. Ensuring compatibility with multiple devices and browsers to provide a seamless user experience.

3. Beta testing the platform with a select group of users, gathering feedback, and making necessary improvements.

4. Promoting Whereby on social media, relevant online forums, and industry-related communities.

The Product Hunt Launch:

With a solid product offering in place, Whereby was ready for its Product Hunt debut. Key strategies employed during the launch included:

1. Announcing the launch on social media channels and newsletters, urging followers to upvote and share Whereby on Product Hunt.

2. Actively engaging with users on Product Hunt, answering questions, and providing support to address any concerns.

3. Offering a limited-time discount on Whereby's premium plans to incentivize new users to sign up and try the service.

4. Encouraging satisfied beta users to share their positive experiences on Product Hunt and social media.

Results:

Whereby's launch on Product Hunt was a significant success. The key outcomes were:

1. Ranking among the top products of the day, with several hundred upvotes.

2. Experiencing a surge in new user sign-ups and conversions to premium plans.

3. Gaining exposure and credibility through positive user reviews and recommendations.

4. Attracting the attention of potential investors and partners, leading to further growth opportunities.

That’s it for today! 🙌

Enjoyed this issue? Send it to your friends here to sign-up. If you have any comments or feedback, just respond to this email or reach out to me on Twitter!

Thanks for reading and see you next week,

Marc-Etienne