Specify launched in early 2022.
We got featured on Product Hunt, ranked #2 Product of the Day, hit the Top 10 Products of the Week, and had 2.5K unique visitors on launch day.
This post details the launch plan.
Why Product Hunt
Product Hunt features new products daily. According to similarweb.com, it gets 4.8M unique visitors every month.
As an early-stage company, launching on Product Hunt is an opportunity to raise brand awareness, acquire new signups, and enable early sales motion.
How Product Hunt works
According to hunted.space, Product Hunt has the highest traffic/visibility on Tuesdays and Thursdays. It's a 24-hour race that starts at 12:01 AM PST / 09:01 AM CET.
Submitting a new product requires the following inputs:
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Name of the product: 40 characters max;
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Tagline: 60 characters max;
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Topics: up to 3 topics — see the full list here;
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Thumbnail: recommended size == 240*240px; maximum size == 2MB;
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Image gallery: recommended size == 1270*760px; upload 3 to 8 images;
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Product description: 260 characters max;
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First comment: starts the discussion; supports basic HTML;
There's a template for that. Here it is.
How Specify launched
When we launched Specify on Product Hunt, we took the following steps:
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Polishing the details;
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Finding a Hunter;
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Going live.
Polishing the details
One mistake when launching on Product Hunt is a confusing tagline.
We considered 2 options:
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Distribute your brand from design to code;
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Sync your Figma files with GitHub repositories in minutes.
We picked the latter, which is more specific and straightforward.
Similarly, we iterated many times on the visual assets to show the product.
Finding a Hunter
Finding a Hunter isn't a requirement per se. I still think it's a better option.
According to Product Hunt, using a Hunter isn't a barrier to success:
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79% of featured posts were by makers who self-hunted;
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60% of #1 Product of the Day winners were self-hunted.
When we launched Specify, we collaborated with Hiten Shah. We partnered with Hiten because he has an influence on Product Hunt and beyond. Above all, it was a fantastic feeling for the team, e.g. an extra source of motivation before the launch.
Going live
We went live on Thursday, February 24, 2022, at 12:01 AM PST / 09:01 AM CET and did the following:
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Posted on Twitter and LinkedIn;
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Sent email campaigns;
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Upvoted and replied to every comment on Product Hunt.
The objective was to be in the Top 3 within the first hour.
Results
The results in a nutshell:
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681 upvotes;
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143 comments;
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#2 Product of the Day;
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#9 Product of the Week, #2 Developer Tool of the Week;
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#5 Developer Tool of the Month;
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72K impressions;
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2.5K DUV.
What's next? Launching on Product Hunt definitely is not a one-time opportunity.
Take Stripe. The company launched 68 times on Product Hunt in the last 10 years. Supabase launched 12 times in the last 4 years. Raycast has launched 11 products since 2020.
Product Hunt is about consistency. Keep launching.