We launched Humalect (a very niche tech product - Kubernetes Adoption Platform) on Product Hunt and became the #1 Product of the day with ~700 upvotes and ~300 comments.
In this guide, I'll talk about how we did it and the things you should know to launch your product successfully on Product Hunt.
Humalect (currently) also is at #3 Product of the Week. If you haven’t supported us yet, you can support us and drop your feedback here.
A little bit of backstory: We publicly launched Humalect about a month ago. We received user feedback and added new features, integrations, & a few extensions (that helped our users to realize instant value).
Our tech team (shoutout to Vishal, our CTO, and the OGs Sagar, Manav & Pulkit) was tirelessly working on it and once we were confident that our platform was stable enough, we decided to launch on Product Hunt.
Here’s how we successfully launched Humalect on Product Hunt and became the #1 Product of the Day.
Clear Messaging
This is no growth hack just common sense. We were 100% clear with our messaging for anyone who fits our ICP.
Product Hunt has set a word limit. Tagline can be 60 characters max and the descriptions 260 characters.
Here is our messaging for Product Hunt Launch.
Title: Humalect
Tagline: Start deploying on Kubernetes in minutes in your own cloud. (58/60)
Description: End-to-end application deployments on Kubernetes in minutes, in your own cloud account - no lock-in, no migration debt. Are you a small team looking to go live fast? Or are you a big team but stuck with migration debt? Use Humalect and live happily ever after! [260/260]
(Yes, I know. The last line is a bit cheeky, but alright.)
No fluff. No fancy words. No wasted real estate. As a startup when you have virtually zero online presence, you cannot afford to take unnecessary risks; focus on being more CLEAR than CATCHY.
Launch Teaser
A LOT of people don’t leverage this enough and, to be honest with you, even we didn’t. We created our launch teaser less than a week prior to our launch.
Ideally, you should create a teaser for your launch 7-14 days before your actual launch. I have seen product launch teasers with 2k+ people following it (screenshot in comments).
You won’t be able to garner that kind of following organically without relentless distribution (more on this later).
Creating a teaser is completely FREE of cost. And people who have opted in (clicked on “Notify Me”) will get an email from Product Hunt when your product launches.
Be Resourceful
We are a team of <10 people and each one of us had to be resourceful. Here are 2 instances:
- Our in-house designer wasn’t available for a few days. One of our tech team members contacted his network and had a friend help us out with a banner for our pre-launch. (Before reaching out, we also tried creating a banner - on Google Slides, in Canva, using AI)
- On the day of our launch, we were juggling between distribution & outreach and the Product Hunt website to see what was working, what position were we at, & the progress of our top #3 competitors.
- One of our team members (Sagar) built a solution on the fly that just displayed the positions of Humalect & our launch buddies and our total upvote count.
If you’re launching on Product Hunt, it’s a high possibility that you have a small team. You HAVE to be resourceful to have a successful Product Hunt launch.
Having "Raving Fans" Definitely Helps
Now, this is ideal to have but you can’t build this in a DAY, WEEK, or even a MONTH.
Our CEO Rajesh has a LOT of “raving fans” (following in the tech/Founders’ community) that he has built over the past 2-3 years by helping people, knowledge sharing, and being an active part of all kinds of events.
On the day of launch, he personally reached out to a lot of people (and here’s the kicker) WITHOUT any automation tool.
There was no messaging template that he was copy-pasting. He had different, truly personalized messages for almost everyone he knew who could support us.
Communities
We leveraged communities that we were part of and actively participated in - for months and, in some cases, for years.
For instance, I am a part of many marketing, growth, and some tech communities. Our tech team was a part of development communities. Our Designer (Ruchi) also was a part of design and UI/UX communities.
We reached out to these communities and asked members to support our launch and give their feedback. And, when you have built trust in communities for a long period of time like we have, people will be more than happy to oblige.
Participate in Product Hunt Community Discussions
We posted a total of 4 times - once almost 24 hours before launch and thrice on the day of launch (including one AMA session with our CEO that eventually had 75+ upvotes). Other than that, we also participated in New & Popular discussions that other PH had posted.
Now, we would NEVER be able to track whether any of these discussions contributed to Humalect becoming the #1 Product of the Day but, I know that they did.
Be Shameless in Asking for Support
So, here’s the thing. You need to maintain consistency in your PH launch’s growth in terms of overall engagement (upvotes & comments). You can’t have sudden spikes and falls in activity on your launch. And, to me, that makes sense!
After a certain point in time during the day of your launch, you’ll realize that you’re running out of fuel - you’ve reached out to every relevant person in your network and you have already used your communities.
What to do now?
Cold DMs. (I am prepared to get some hate on this.)
We reached out to Makers of product launches that we had supported in the past, through Twitter & LinkedIn DMs.
We sent messages to PH members who had the longest visit streaks in their profiles. I, personally, even reached out to veterans with a lot of following on Product Hunt.
We were definitely skeptical while doing this (kind of felt wrong) but, to our surprise, a lot of these members actually came through.
The Product Hunt community is really supportive because almost all the members KNOW what kind of hard work and effort goes into launching a product on the platform.
Be Prepared for Surprises
You have to be physically & mentally prepared for anything.
People tried to sabotage our launch with bot attacks - fake reviews, AI-generated comments, etc.! We had to deal with that amidst the chaos of everything.
Even though we weren’t prepared for this, we went without sleep for 24+ hours - either reaching out to people, replying to people’s comments, contacting Product Hunt support, etc.
We slept in shifts for 2-3 hours making sure there was someone monitoring our launch and responding in case something unexpected happened.
Things to Avoid on Your Product Hunt Launch Day
Engagements from New (PH) Community Members
While it’s good to have support from friends & family members, make sure that you consciously minimize support from new Product Hunt profiles. In our case, <1-2% of engagement came from new Product Hunt community members.
Exhaust Your Fuel Hours after Your Launch
Even though you’re tempted to get support from literally EVERYONE you know as soon as you launch, DON’T. Divide your launch equally across 24 hours. In fact, a lot of us didn’t even post on our social media profiles until after 6-7 hours of our launch.
Panic in Face of Adversity
Don't panic. You might run into a lot of situations that might induce anxiety but try to stay calm while reacting to them.
For instance, while our launch was being attacked by bots, we kept our calm and reached out to Product Hunt support through Twitter DM, Email, and Intercom on the website.
This helped us to get ahead of this thing and actually get a resolution from PH support.
