How exactly I got 700+ upvotes on Product Hunt today
Hey doers and makers,
I launched my product on Product Hunt today. My stats:
- #1 Product of the Day
- 700+ upvotes
- 1k+ signups
UPDATE: I wrote a super detailed guide here: https://www.indiehackers.com/post/i-owe-you-900-upvotes-on-product-hunt-8f32caf9df
The voting is still open, so the stats might change. You can view live stats here: https://www.producthunt.com/posts/fundraising-kit
My strategy was simple: get as many upvotes in the first hour as possible and then hope for the organic traffic to pick up.
As you can see on the graph, that's exactly what happened.
My sources of upvotes:
1/ Audience that I built exclusively for the launch — 300+ people
2/ Product users — 100+ people
3/ My network — 30+ people
4/ Partner posts in startup communities — 8 posts
The audience that I built exclusively for the launch
Two weeks before the launch I teased the product in 15+ startup communities and asked for feedback in exchange for a sneak peek. 300+ founders reached out to me (haven't expected that lol)! I responded to all of them. I literally had 300+ 1x1 conversations going on my Telegram/Email/Linkedin. Today I reached out to all of them and asked them if they want to supprt the launch. Most fo them did and I got a huge boost in the first hour.
Product users & my network
I just emailed all my user base (100+ people). I also reached out to all my friends and asked if they want to support the launch (30+ people). That's it 😅
Partner posts in startup communities
Two weeks before the launch I built a list of all startup communities I was able to find (Slack groups, Telegram chats, Facebook groups, etc). I reached out to the founders of these communities and aksed them if they can promote my launch. My product is free and brings real value to their audience so 8 of them agreed. Today I got 8 partner posts with the total audience of 60k+ people. I think that allowed me to get a consistent stream of upvotes along the day.
Hunter
I also reached out to the #1 hunter and asked him to hunt my product.
Summary
I spent 5+ months building the product (Notion page) and it took me two weeks to build an audience for the launch.
By the way, you can still support me here: https://www.producthunt.com/posts/fundraising-kit
Woow, Congrats! what was your process to connect with a hunter?
It was a pretty straightforward process. I just googled "top product hunt hunters" and found Kevin (https://www.producthunt.com/@kevin). I found his email on his personal website and just emailed him. He responded 5-6 hours later.
Some folks report that their initial product hunt attention didn't allow them to gather a community respectively build up continuous traffic. What are your experiences, @pavelgvay?
I think it's more about audience engagement than the launch itself. If you have a great engagement strategy the PH audience will stay. I used content marketing + emails to convert the PH audience into users.
Thanks for the post! I've never heard of "Product Hunt Hunters" before - you learn something new every day 🙂.
Congrats! And thanks for detailed info, super helpful.
Congratulations Pavel.
Great job on 1v1 conversations. That's what hustle is.
Cheers,
Thanks! It took me almost a week, but I met so many awesome people — totally worth it!
Amazing stuff, @pavelgvay! Way to go.
Thank you! I decided to write a super-detailed guide. Hope you like it: https://www.indiehackers.com/post/i-owe-you-900-upvotes-on-product-hunt-8f32caf9df
Nice job!
How did you find the relevant communities and what did you say to the owner of said groups for them to agree to post/promote.
I reached out to the owners of the communities where I posted my product teasers and asked just them if they can help me promote the launch. I knew their audience will find my Notion useful, I had already received tons of positive feedback by that time. Keep in my that my Notion was free, so it was easy to convince them.
I just wrote a super detailed guide about my launch: https://www.indiehackers.com/post/i-owe-you-900-upvotes-on-product-hunt-8f32caf9df