Product Hunt definitely is a great place to launch a developer-first product.
If there certainly isn’t a formula to launch successfully, there may be a set of principles to help maximize your chances:
Polish the details: keep the tagline and description simple and straightforward;
Show the product: no stock images, no marketing fluff;
Find a Hunter;
Schedule your launch early;
Schedule as much content as possible: first comment and social posts;
Raise awareness: build an audience, support other product launches;
Go live at 12:01 AM PST on a weekday for maximum exposure;
Rank in the Top 5 within the first 4 hours;
Engage: upvote and reply to every comment;
Keep launching.
Further inspiration
Below are more resources for inspiration:
Product Hunt Launch Guide, by Product Hunt;
Lago’s Product Hunt Launch Playbook, by Lago (launched in April 2023, ranked #1 Product of the Month);
How not to launch on Product Hunt, by Plausible (launched in August 2020, ranked #2 Product of the Day).
You can find here more resources to help you get started:
awesome-product-hunt: a collection of great dev-first product launches;
product-hunt-launch-kit.md: required inputs to submit a new product;
product-hunt-community-kit.md: ideas to leverage your network;
Wrapping up
Over to you! I hope this series gave you some insights to prep your launch on Product Hunt. I enjoy contributing to launching dev tools and am happy to help more folks.
If you’re launching something new, feel free to reach out on Twitter / X or LinkedIn.
Enjoy your launch day!
Thanks to Laura Du Ry (Appwrite), Tanya Rai (LastMile AI), Luis Guzmán (n8n), and Rishabh Kaul (Appsmith) for your contributions. Thanks to Jack Bridger for bs-checking this post. They’re all in the Developer Marketing community, a place where 1,600+ tech founders and marketers from awesome dev-first, open-source companies hang out to share insights and best practices. Join the fun!
