El libro de jugadas definitivo para hacer volar por los aires tu lanzamiento de Product Hunt

Salesflare was voted the #1 CRM on Product Hunt. Here’s how we pulled it off and how you can do better.

Caza de productos

This playbook will hand you actionable tactics, tips, tricks and hacks to get you on top of Product Hunt — Silicon Valley’s favourite little playground.

Side effects may include ⚠

  • severe traffic spikes on your websites 🚦
  • a sh!tload of new followers on social media 👥
  • getting featured in tech media like TechCrunch or TheNextWeb 🗞
  • fresh product ideas 💡
  • new business relationships 🤝
  • a meowntain of new customers 👔
  • dinero lloviendo de la nada
Lluvia de dinero

This won’t work if you have a shitty product.

Menos mal que Product Hunt te dirá por qué tu producto es una mierda, para que puedas convertirlo en uno bueno.

This won’t work if you’re not willing to put in the work.

This guide is long for a reason. Launching your product on Product Hunt is a one-time opportunity that can turn out pivotal for your business. You’ll only get one shot at this and I will tell you exactly what you need to do to make the most out of it. This is me giving you a head start. It’s up to you to hit it out of the park.

I’ve included TL;DRs (Too Long; Didn’t Read) at the end of every section so you can get a quick recap before you move on.

Let’s dive in 🐋.


WTF is Product Hunt? 😳

If you’ve never heard of Product Hunt, I’m gonna guess you’ve been exploring Mars in search of alternative fuels. In that case: could you slip me Elon’s number real quick? 🙃 Don’t worry about the Product Hunt thing, I got you covered 👐.

Product Hunt is the little baby of Ryan Hoover. Ryan is one of those guys that just friggin’ loves everything that’s new and cool. Not just for fun. For Ryan, new products are an opportunity to learn and, most of all, a way of connecting with like-minded people.

Back in 2013, Ryan was looking for a one-stop-shop to discover the hottest new tech products. As he didn’t find anything, he did the entrepreneurial thing and started it himself. In its cute early days as an MVP, Product Hunt was a mailing list, build on this one question:

¿Qué productos geniales utilizas?

It’s a question we all ask and it turned out to be one hell of a community builder. Within two weeks, Ryan’s little mailing list had 170 subscribers devouring discoveries from 30 hand-picked contributors, consisting of startup founders, VCs, and prominent bloggers. Ryan was on to something.

Ryan Hoover asiente con la cabeza
Ryan Hoover, fundador de Product Hunt

Today, Product Hunt is Silicon Valley’s favourite little playground on the web. A tightly-knit community of like-minded geeks who bond over anything hot 🔥 and the new ✨. Not just tech, but also books, podcasts and games — you name it. The site kind of works like reddit, with users posting products and the community making or breaking them with comments and upvotes.

More upvotes will get your product higher on Product Hunt’s frontpage, getting you some solid street cred with a community packed with early adopters, curious investors and avid entrepreneurs. It is the ultimate startup launchpad 🚀.


TL;DR

  • Product Hunt fue fundada por Ryan Hoover
  • como ventanilla única para descubrir las últimas novedades.
  • it’s a tightly-knit community of early adopters, investors and entrepreneurs
  • convirtiéndola en la plataforma de lanzamiento definitiva.

OK… And why should I care again? 🙄

¿Ha oído hablar alguna vez de la curva de adopción de productos?

It’s one of those gazillion frameworks they show you in marketing class you then instantly forget about. I did anyway.

Curva de adopción de productos

La razón por la que debería importarte es que quieres que la gente empiece a utilizar tu producto. Quieres esto porque, bueno, todo el mundo que construye un producto quiere esto.

Para conseguirlo, hay que entender cómo un nuevo producto se abre camino en el mercado y llega a los nuevos usuarios.

The Product Adoption Curve is something all new kids on the block have to go through. Facebook, Slack, Uber and DVDs (still ring a bell?) — heck, even underwear at some point must have gone through it (hope those do ring a bell?). Some go faster, some go slower. Others just die along the way because they fail to understand how it works.

Las personas a las que primero tienes que subir a bordo son innovadores.

Why? Because these are the ones willing to take your product for a spin when it’s still a baby. They‘re okay with it still shitting the bed from time to time 💩. They look beyond the bugs and spartan features to see if your product deserves to exist. They’ll share their findings with the world and, if they like what they see, may even end up promoting your product.

¡Oooo! ¡Un juguete nuevo y brillante! ¡Claro que sí!

Innovators will get you across the chasm, which is the big wide gap sitting between you and your target masses. Or push you in. Whatever happens, you’ll be smarter than you were yesterday. It’s make or break. Sink or swim.

Así es como Facebook, Uber y Slack se convirtieron en grandes empresas. Piense en ello. Las tres empezaron dirigiéndose a un pequeño grupo de usuarios y acabaron liderando sus mercados. Facebook surgió de la popularidad de Harvard, Uber de la mentalidad abierta de San Francisco y Slack de empresas expertas en tecnología que querían hacer pruebas beta.

Innovators are like the first pin on a bowling alley. Knock it down and the other pins will fall along. Strike! 🎳

Now for the good part ☝

👉 Product Hunt is one big club of innovators and early adopters.

It’s a rocketship waiting to take your product to the stars ✨. If you want to launch a tech product or service, launch it on Product Hunt. All aboard! 👨‍🚀

Oh, did I mention Product Hunt was acquired by AngelList back in december 2016? You know, the world’s biggest network of angel investors 👼. Doesn’t hurt to get into their attention space.


TL;DR

  • La Caza de Productos está repleta de innovadores y pioneros
  • estas son las personas que quieres que echen un vistazo a tu producto.
  • they’ll give you invaluable feedback
  • y es probable que utilicen y promocionen su producto si les gusta
  • oh, PH is also owned by the world’s largest network of angel investors

YOLO 🤞 You Only Launch Once

Su producto puede publicarse una vez. Una vez. Tienes una sola oportunidad de hacerlo bien. Haga que cuente.

Look. If you had one shot. One opportunity.
To seize everything you ever wanted. In one moment.
Would you capture it? Or just let it slip?
(Eminem — Lose Yourself)

I’m your man on the inside. I’ve been to the Product Hunt. I’ve seen things. I survived and I thrived. And now I’m here to help you do the same and better.

He visto cosas en la fosa. Cosas que no puedo olvidar

Do you remember when Luke Skywalker and his rebels had one shot at destroying the Death Star? This is exactly like that. With the difference that Product Hunt doesn’t do sequels like Star Wars does. You don’t get to destroy the Death Star twice like Luke did.

¿Esto me convierte en tu Maestro Yoda? Sí, exactamente lo que significa.

No intentes, hagas o no hagas, no hay intento - Maestro yoda

Now, Product Hunt doesn’t do sequels. But it does do spin-offs. You can in fact launch a new feature of your product if it’s cool enough to be marketed on its own and provides real value to the early adopters. In the end, it all comes down to how you sell it (as always).

A full-blown launch of your product is more complicated. You can’t launch your product twice unless its essence is so new and/or improved that it can be considered a new product. Think of it as a reboot of a franchise.

Una segunda oportunidad de destruir la Estrella de la Muerte podrías tener después de todo, joven Jedi.


TL;DR

  • sólo tienes una oportunidad para lanzar en Product Hunt (más o menos)
  • do or do not — there is no try
  • Yo soy Yoda

1. Get in the tribe. Act as if you belong 😏

Conozca a su público. Antes de pensar en lanzarse a Product Hunt, debe experimentar de primera mano de qué se trata. ¿Qué hace vibrar a los primeros usuarios?

Apúntate, sumérgete y juega. Lánzate de cabeza. Conoce los entresijos de la comunidad formando parte de ella.

Día 37: Aún no sospechan que soy un simple gato

Let’s cover some basics first 📋

  • La caza diaria 👀
    Product Hunt’s frontpage showcases products according to the number of upvotes they got (and more — there’s un algoritmo secreto). El producto que termina en la cima al final del día es el ganador. A las 12 de la mañana PST, la página se actualiza y la caza comienza de nuevo.
  • Votos a favor 👍
    Upvotes are Product Hunt’s equivalent of Facebook’s likes. If you like a product, you can vote it up and push it up the page. The more votes, the higher on the page it will end up at the end of the day.
  • Hunters 🕵
    Los Hunter son miembros con derechos especiales para cazar productos y publicarlos en Product Hunt. Sus poderes especiales les fueron otorgados por otros cazadores, convirtiéndolos en los elegidos de la comunidad.
  • Fabricantes 👨‍🔬
    Son los miembros que crearon el producto.

Once you got the basics figured out, have your curiosity take the lead. Lurk around, check out similar products to yours and learn about their launch strategies. Spy on titles, taglines, logos, screenshots, comments and general wording. Steal with your eyes 👀.

Simpson saliendo de un arbusto

TL;DR

  • immerse yourself in the PH — community
  • conoce lo básico: upvotes, hunters y makers
  • roba con los ojos

2. Hunt down your Hunter 🏹

No Hunter = No Product Hunt Launch. Ya lo tienes.

There’s hunters and there’s hunters. What you want is one of the uberhunters. Estos son los mejores. En crème de la crème. En elegidos entre los elegidos.

Cosas a tener en cuenta para encontrar el Frodo que llevará su One Product To Rule Them All hasta la montaña de Product Hunt:

  • Número de seguidores 👥
    Cuando un Hunter envíe un producto, todos sus seguidores recibirán una notificación. Cuantos más seguidores, más visibilidad, más probabilidades de que te disparen a la parte superior de la página.
  • Historial de puestos de éxito🏅
    Así que sabes que tiene juego.
  • Afinidad con su tipo de producto 🤓
    Así que usted sabe que recibe por qué su producto es impresionante.
    (we’re going to assume yours is, in fact, awesome)

Having a good hunter on your side is like being in pole position on the starting grid of a Formula 1 race. Your chances of finishing first are significantly higher 🏁.

mirándote

Nail your pitch 🔨

You choosing a hunter doesn’t mean the hunter chooses you. You may be madly in love with your product, your hunter probably isn’t (yet). It’s up to you to make him/her fall for it.

Top hunters get pitched multiple times a day. Don’t waste their time. Make sure yours is on point. Pitching is an art: it takes time to perfect.

Good thing you’ve been doing it ever since you got started with your idea, right?

Still, I guess it doesn’t hurt to refresh your memory with these 6 golden pointers from top hunter Bram Kanstein ✌:

  • Ante todo, muestre entusiasmo y haga que su discurso sea personal.
  • Tell about the problem you’re solving 🎯
  • Sea voilà 👉 muestre su solución
  • Show early results if you have them 📈
  • Why are you the man/woman/team that’s going to take this to the moon? 🌝
  • How can the person you pitch to help you? Asking for specific feedback is also good. It’s difficult to help when your question is simply: “what do you think?”

These are from Bram’s killer article 5 ways not to pitch your product — a must-read if you’re looking to get your pitch right.

Bram is not just any hunter, he is the hunter who launched the #1 most upvoted product of all time on Product Hunt. This product, Startup Stash — a carefully curated directory of startup tools and resources — also happened to be his own product.

Bram estaba #1 en mi lista para cazar Salesflare y leer sus artículos formaba parte de mi estrategia para llegar a él.

Rules like this don’t mean you can’t get creative with your pitch. My idea to hook him was to pitch Salesflare in the exact ways Bram tells you not to in his article. Something like this:

Hola Bram,

You’ll be amazed by this. We built the Uber of Sales! It’s a unique CRM that is going to change the way sales is being done. We’ve been working our asses off for more than 2 years but now our baby has finally been born. Everyone we showed it to loved it! It’s going to be yuge!

Esto fue sólo para llamar su atención. Creo en destacar. También tiendo a hacer lo contrario de lo que la gente me dice. Yo habría seguido y lanzó Salesflare el camino correcto después.

La cosa es que nunca lo necesité. Verás, Bram acababa de publicar esto en su muro de Twitter:

Supongo que estaba harto de correos electrónicos como el que iba a enviarle. Los tuits son otra cosa. Decidimos enviarle nuestro vídeo.

He went for it! 🙌

Remember to show your solution and be voilà? 👆

Well, nothing is more voilà than a video.

We had a video in the making for about 2 months and it was one of the crucial factors in deciding when to go full-in on our Product Hunt Launch. Not only does it help you pitch to hunters — it’s also kind of a must for your Product Hunt page once you actually get hunted.


TL;DR

  • puntúate como el mejor cazador
  • te dará ventaja en tu carrera hacia la cima
  • busca (1) número de seguidores (2) historial de publicaciones exitosas (3) afinidad con tu producto.
  • clave su lanzamiento
  • obtenga un vídeo de su producto

3. Cook up your Product Hunt Starter Pack 👨‍🍳

Now that you’ve found yourself an experienced general, it’s time to gear up for battle.

Esenciales para preparar:

  • Nombre del producto 💁
    Bastante sencillo. Pero aún puedes marcar la diferencia aquí. Lo hemos hecho Salesflare CRM para asegurarnos de que la gente pudiera encontrarnos fácilmente cuando buscara un CRM en Product Hunt.
  • URL correcta del sitio web (+ URL de App/Play Store) 🔗
    Throw them all in there. If you don’t have a website yet, you can just create a landing page with general information on your product and a download link if possible.
  • Etiqueta
    Pegadizo y claro. Fuimos por CRM de ventas inteligente para startups que prosperan con la tecnología. CRM de ventas para definir claramente nuestra posición en el espacio CRM, inteligente como nuestro principal diferenciador y startups que prosperan con la tecnología to indicate who we built it for. Resist the urge to be overly creative here, you don’t want to confuse people.
  • Logotipo 👁‍🗨
    Sure, you can just put your logo. But this won’t exactly get you points with the Product Hunt cool kids. Make it move. Like Jagger. We had a Salesflare Product Hunt cat pop up in our logo and combined this with some conceptual animations. It doesn’t have to the next Star Wars movie, just make it move. People are attracted by moving things. Especially when they’re quickly scanning a front page filled with all kinds of stuff.
Vista general rápida del producto Salesflare
Salesflare’s Product Hunt logo
  • URL del perfil de Maker Product Hunt 👨‍🔬
    Asegúrese de que los miembros del equipo considerados creadores del producto estén todos en Product Hunt antes del lanzamiento para que su Hunter pueda incluir a todos como creadores. Esto no es sólo para quedar bien. Aparecer en la lista de creadores te dará derecho a comentar, algo crucial para entablar conversaciones con la comunidad.
  • Vídeo/Capturas de pantalla 🖼
    Su oportunidad de ser voilà. Don’t just stop at the video (yes, it autoplays) — your screenshots should be equally engaging. We put up animated GIFs showcasing different Salesflare features. You don’t have to put GIFs. I’ve seen great Product Hunt pages with static screenshots. Thing is GIFs just provide more value because… well, because they move and people love stuff that moves.
Salesflare producto de demostración de la libreta de direcciones
  • Prepare su comentario introductorio 💬
    It’s up to you to kick off the conversation on your product once it’s live. You don’t want to be putting something together in a rush at the very last minute, so make sure you write something beforehand you can just copy-paste when the time is right. Start off with why you built the product and lay out some of its core functionalities. Specify what kind of feedback you’re looking for. Mention the special promotion you have in store for the community (more on that later) and don’t forget to give your hunter a shootout for hunting you. Here’s ours:
Comentarios introductorios del cofundador de Salesflare
  • Tags 🔖
    Haga que su producto sea fácil de encontrar añadiendo etiquetas relevantes. Algunos ejemplos de etiquetas que elegimos para Salesflare incluyen tecnología, ventas, comunicación con el cliente, extensión chrome y web. Don’t worry if you don’t get them right from the start, you can make changes afterwards. Product Hunt does closely watch these tags and may remove them they don’t agree. Feel free to chat with them if you think they made a mistake. We had a few tags removed and then put back again after we explained why we thought they were relevant for Salesflare.
  • Fecha de inicio de la caza 📅
    As a rule of thumb, Product Hunt’s busiest days of the week range from Tuesday until Thursday (I guess early adopters in California party from Friday till Sunday and then die on Monday — fair enough). Busy means more competition, but busy also means more people to upvote, try your product and leave you with valuable feedback. Ending up on top may be very exciting, the quantity of users getting in touch with you is probably more valuable for your business on the long-term. Tuesday is arguably better than Wednesday because you’ll have 24 hours more to be upvoted and make it into Product Hunt’s weekly digest. With all this in mind, we chose Tuesday and took about one and a half week to prepare our launch as soon as we got the green light from our hunter. You could easily do with less, but gathering support pre-launch while continuing to attend to every-day business stuff is no walk in the park. You don’t want to skip any of your shuteye time prior to your launch either— it’ll get kind of crazy once you’re live.
  • Hora de inicio de la caza 🕒
    A new hunt is launched every day at 12am PST. People typically say to post immediately after midnight, but this is probably not the best way to go. Product Hunt’s secret algorithm is said to penalize age in ranking products, so you’re probably better off waiting a few hours as the US’ awakening comes closer. This is if you’re confident your own network can help you get initial traction in the first hours, so you’ll be pretty high as soon as first New York and then San Francisco crawls out of bed. For Salesflare we initially proposed to be posted around midnight to our hunter but he said he found posting around 3–4am PST (12–1pm local time here in Antwerp) to be the most effective. This gives you enough time to push yourself up in the first hour and be right where you should be as Product Hunt’s core members start checking their smartphones hanging over their morning coffees.

Once you’re done, send everything over to your hunter in a nice email, well in time before D-Day. Use a Google Drive folder to share your screenshots and other media so you can still make last-minute changes if needed. We sent a Google Calendar Invite to set date and time to avoid any confusion for everyone involved.


TL;DR

  • prepare lo esencial para su lanzamiento
  • name — clear & easy searchable
  • tagline — catch & clear
  • logo — make it move
  • video — just have a video
  • screenshots — make them stand out (by making them move)
  • prepare your intro comment — why, what, thank hunter, promotion
  • set a day — (1) somewhere between Tuesday and Thursday (2) take your time to prepare
  • set a time —(1) after midnight PST (2) before the US wakes up
  • entregárselo todo a tu cazador, en bandeja de plata

4. Gather your fans 🤗

La fórmula secreta para el éxito del lanzamiento de Product Hunt se compone de dos cosas:

  • un gran producto (por supuesto)
  • tracción inicial

Both things you can control. If your product is not great, stop reading now and come back once it is. Don’t worry too much about some features not being entirely on point yet. Remember, these are early adopters — they’re okay with your product still being an infant and will happily help you find and kill early bugs as long as they see some real value.

Un grupo de esbirros entusiastas

Getting initial traction on Product Hunt is a little bit like getting your startup its first 100 customers. You may have the greatest product the world has ever seen— if people don’t have it in front of them, they won’t upvote it. Don’t make yourself any illusions: even early adopters won’t scroll endlessly to find your product. It has to be right there as soon as the site or app loads. Slap ‘m in the face with it.

Minion entusiasta gritando pick me pick me

This means you’ll need a fair amount of upvotes as soon as Product Hunt rush hour kicks in.

Contar con un cazador de primera de su lado ya le llevará muy lejos, pero recuerde que las batallas las ganan los soldados, no los generales.

Now, you cannot just ask all of your friends and family to upvote you. Product Hunt was built to make it easy to discover the world’s greatest new products, not to force-feed your own stuff to whoever. It is precisely this that makes Product Hunt so great at showcasing the best things out there. Not only should you respect that, Product Hunt’s algorithm will also increasingly push down your product if too many votes from brand new accounts come rolling in. So, what can you do? Here’s a few ideas:

1) Encuentra a tus amigos en Product Hunt 👫

Lo más probable es que ya tengas algunos amigos en Product Hunt. Product Hunt sincroniza las personas a las que sigues en Twitter, así que lo primero que debes hacer es comprobar quiénes de ellos podrían estar dispuestos a mostrarte su apoyo y notificarles tu próximo lanzamiento.

2) Pregunta a tus otros amigos de todos modos 🙈

You’d be surprised how many people know about Product Hunt without having an account. Maybe they’ve been peeking from time to time without really getting into upvoting. Or maybe they know about it but didn’t take the time to take a proper look yet. Your launch may very well be the perfect occasion for these people to sign up.

I know it says friends but what I really mean is network: friends, family, customers, business contacts, your dog,… Anyone you have a direct line with. We went through our contact lists and started asking people we thought of as early adopters if they had a Product Hunt account. If they did, we told them about our launch. If they didn’t, we told them about the community and how awesome it is. If it’s their jam, they’ll make an account and you have them onboard. If it’s not, you’ll leave them be.

Aunque Product Hunt no es sólo un canal de marketing que puedas explotar, puedes hablar de él a la gente. De hecho, Product Hunt necesita este tipo de visibilidad para seguir creciendo. Muchos de mis amigos son usuarios activos desde que los introdujimos en la comunidad. Eso sí, asegúrate de hacerlo antes de tu lanzamiento y no el mismo día.

3) Haz una hoja de Google y haz un seguimiento 📈

Now you’ll have tens or even hundreds of people lined up to support your launch and it’s your responsibility to make sure they come through. Keep track of the people you contacted so you can effectively follow up on the big day. Include name, channel (Messenger, WhatsApp, Twitter,…) and status (did they vote already?).

4) Estar en el radar de las personas que han votado productos similares. 💡

Busca a personas que hayan votado productos similares al tuyo y asegúrate de que te conocen.

You can actually scrape upvoters of products posted on PH by using this little tool. Just put in the URL of the product and your Developer Token (head over to API Dashboard under your Product Hunt profile to get this) and you’ll get the Twitter handles of all the upvoters for that given products.

There’s tons of things you can do with this. For starters, you can follow them on both Product Hunt and Twitter. You can also tweet them or even target them with emails or Facebook Ads (you’ll need to do some data enriching first though).

5) Busque guardianes sociales 🌪

Presta especial atención a las personas con muchos seguidores e intenta que compartan tu lanzamiento de Product Hunt con su red.

6) Chat is king 💬

The magical word at this stage is chatting. Remember you need these people to commit twice: you need them to sign up beforehand and you need them to upvote you on the big day. This is why a channel like email will be far less effective here: it doesn’t allow for an engaging dialogue. Sure, you can send an email a week beforehand and another one on launch day but you’ll have zero control over people really making accounts and being active on Product Hunt prior to your launch. This may negatively affect your page ranking. We chose not to take that chance.

You can think of Product Hunt’s frontpage as a Google Search Results page — only the top gets clicked and visibility goes downhill fast as you go down the page. It’s like a snowball effect — make sure you have a big ball already once the heavy snow starts falling down. If your product really is great, the community will take over and make sure you stay on top.

BONUS: Thunderclap — it⚡👏

Don’t know what Thunderclap is?

Thunderclap is a platform you can use to create social media campaigns built on the strength of your network. You’ll basically have your friends and followers support a purpose of your choosing by means of Facebook or Twitter posts. Write up a message, set a date and invite your friends.

Coge a tu amigo del trueno y di estas palabras mágicas:

As soon as the campaign starts (once you’re live on PH) — tweets or Facebook status updates will go out from all the people who joined your campaign. At the same time. Needless to say, this will seriously amplify your reach.

I’m going to be straight with you guys here: we didn’t do Thunderclap.
Why not? We forgot. We just forgot.


TL;DR

  • gran producto + tracción inicial = gran éxito en PH
  • encuentra amigos en PH
  • ask your other friends if they’re on PH — if they’re not, tell them about it ask if they want to be
  • crear una hoja de Google para el seguimiento
  • scrape upvoters de productos similares en PH => target
  • Búscate influencers
  • Chatea con todos tus conocidos para contarles el lanzamiento de tu PH.
  • crear una campaña Thunderclap
  • !! don’t forget to set up a Thunderclap campaign (like we did)

5. Butter up the community 💆

Haga que el Producto Hunters se sienta especial.

¿Por qué?

Vamos hijo

We’ve been over this.

Because they’re innovators and because you need their help to cross the chasm. Besides, as you are in the early stages of your product, their feedback will be invaluable. The more, the merrier.

It’s common courtesy to offer Product Hunt members special deals. If done right, Product Hunt will be a gift that keeps on giving. It’s only right you give something back. For Salesflare, we gave the club a very steep discount (very steep… of the likes we don’t give out anymore, but, hey, it was early days!).


TL;DR

  • Haz que los Product Hunters se sientan especiales y queridos
  • dándoles una supercalifragilistico trato

6. Become a cat person 😼

In case you haven’t noticed: Product Hunt loves cats.

Un día, un seguidor de Product Hunt Jesse Thomas se ofreció a diseñar una camiseta. La Glasshole Kitty fue una de las ideas que envió. Al equipo de Product Hunt le gustó tanto que encargó un montón de camisetas y pegatinas y empezó a enviarlas a los primeros miembros de la comunidad. Estos, a su vez, compartían sus regalos del gatito en las redes sociales, lo que despertó la idea de la mascotte del gatito.

Gatito de Product Hunt

While Product Hunt never really changed their logo, the kitty is everywhere. It’s big in social media posts and has been adapted to launch several Product Hunt projects like books, podcasts and their Snapchat account.

Product Hunt logotipos de gatitos

So if you’re looking to get that meowntain of upvotes from the community, you’ll better put turn into a crazy cat lady for the day.


TL;DR

  • Al producto Caza le gustan los gatos
  • por alguna razón

7. Dress up your website for the big day💄

Your Product Hunt launch is a day of celebration so it’s only right your website looks all nice and pretty for the occasion, don’t you think?

It’s also a great chance to once again highlight that special Product Hunt deal you prepared for your fans. Shine bright like a diamond! 💎

spongebob asking, "am i a pretty girl?"

Puede utilizar IntroBar (yes, it’s free) to put up a nice-looking welcome bar on top of your website when people click through via your PH-link (this will end in /?ref=producto caza). Here’s what Salesflare’s website looked like on her big day.


TL;DR

  • Haga que su sitio web brille para su gran día

8. Set the internet on fire 🔥

DE ACUERDO.

You’re live on Product Hunt. Showtime! 💥👊

Haz correr la voz. Saca la artillería pesada. ¡Liberen al Kraken!

La mierda se ha vuelto real

The goal is simple: to make sure the whole world knows you’re on Product Hunt. Now remember: Product Hunt frowns upon asking for upvotes. So don’t. Instead, say things like ‘come say hi’ or ‘join the conversation’. Just let people know you’re on Product Hunt but spare no effort.

There’s this rumour that Product Hunt’s algorithm penalizes you if you send people directly to your PH — page. To this day, I have not found compelling evidence of this being true. We were careful about it though, sending people to the search results page for the the query ‘Salesflare’.

A continuación, una lista de tácticas de guerrilla de PH de las que hasta Rambo estaría celoso.

Let’s hustle ✌

1) Go through your list 📄

Follow up on the people you know have a Product Hunt account following your pre-launch efforts and give them a quick reminder. Make sure you miss no one and be thorough. Just because people say they will take a look, doesn’t mean they will. Check if their vote is already there and follow up again if needed. They may have just forgotten — it’s your big day, not theirs. Be careful not to spam though. We called it quits after two reminders.

2) Notifíquelo a sus clientes por correo electrónico o chat en directo 🗣

Tus clientes ya han comprado o se han suscrito a tu producto, así que debe de gustarles. Haz un seguimiento de los que ya están en tu lista siguiendo tu estrategia de prelanzamiento. Al resto puedes dirigirte por correo electrónico y chat en directo en tu sitio web (si lo tienes). Hicimos que apareciera un mensaje Intercom notificando a los usuarios de nuestra campaña en cuanto se registraban en Salesflare. Una vez más, el chat tiene una ventaja sobre el correo electrónico cuando se trata de educar a su destinatario sobre lo que es Product Hunt y lo que deben hacer si quieren ayudarle.

3) Inundar Twitter 🌊

Most of Product Hunt’s core audience is on Twitter so it would be great if you get people to talk about your launch on there. Go for both quality and quantity. It’s a good idea to prepare some tweets the day before so you don’t lose time coming up with something funny in the middle of the storm. Tweet as soon as you’re live and keep it up as you reach several milestones (every 100 upvotes for example).

Haz que tus tuits sean divertidos y simpáticos con GIF y memes para que tus seguidores los compartan. Después, mantén la conversación. La gente empezará a tuitearte y retuitearte. Ayuda, sé humilde, agradece, dale a me gusta y retuitea. Repite.

Da las gracias a tu cazador, a tus upvoters y a la propia Product Hunt. Dimos las gracias a todos los upvoters con un tuit personalizado en el que etiquetábamos a Product Hunt para aumentar nuestras posibilidades de recibir me gusta y retuits.

Consejo profesional – you can automate these tweets by hooking up Zapier to a Google Sheet you fill up with Twitter handles. Beware of the fact that both your DMs and Tweets per day are limited. We sent our tweets out by hand on launch day — this makes it more personal too— and had final automated thank you’s go out the day after.

4) Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Snapchat, Pinterest,… 🎈

Además de Twitter, utiliza cualquier canal en el que tengas algún tipo de seguidores para correr la voz.

Facebook is obvious. We posted the same kind of stuff as we did on Twitter — just a little less because it’s somewhat harder to make something go viral there using hashtags and mentions. Also have team members post from personal accounts.

Apply the same strategy to LinkedIn. Although you might want to put up a small blog post there while you’re at it — those get great visibility these days. Be sure to have it prepared though.

Instagram, Snapchat y Pinterest también pueden ser geniales. Todo depende de tu tipo de producto. Suelta globos por todas partes, pero recuerda adaptar siempre tu mensaje en consecuencia.

5) Facebook Groups and Slack Chats 😏

Where do people on the internet hang out these days? Nowadays, you’re probably best off looking at Facebook Groups and Slack Chats.

A lot of geographical regions have their own dedicated Product Hunt community. Just ask for access to as many as possible prior to your launch and keep track of which ones they allow you to. Examples of Groups we posted in include Product Hunt France, Product Hunt Berlin and Product Hunt London. Make sure to be active before your launch so you’re not a total stranger when you post about your launch.

You can also post in other Groups on stuff like startups, entrepreneurship and growth hacking but it’s not as easy. Increase your chances by being a valuable member and preferably having a good relation with the group admin. You can try to post about your launch with a post that provides actual value to the community. For example, we put together a post on some of our pre-launch marketing tactics — then referring to our launch in the first comment. This worked for some groups, not all of them.

Hoy en día, los pioneros y los emprendedores se encuentran cada vez más en las comunidades especializadas de Slack Chat. Las mismas reglas: explora de antemano y comprométete con la comunidad antes de pedirles algo. Puedes empezar a buscar comunidades Slack relevantes aquí y aquí.

6) reddit and Hacker News 💣

Reddit and HackerNews can be equally powerful channels to get the word out on your PH launch. But, again, you’ll need to prepare this beforehand. Write a post that brings value and isn’t too spammy. It’s probably also a good idea to build up some karma on your account beforehand as well. Make sure you have some guys/girls ready to upvote your post so people actually get to see it. The share your startup thread over at the /startups subreddit is a great place to start.

7) A yuuuuuuge email campaign 📫

“Stick a fork in email, because it’s D-O-N-E.”

It’s not.

¿Y si te dijera que el correo electrónico sigue siendo muy importante?

Email is still one of the backbones of the Internet. I’m sure you agree and have a big fat email list all ready to fire the news about Product Hunt launch at. If you don’t, start right now.

Your email doesn’t have to be too fancy. Just put the word out: explain a little about what Product Hunt is all about and include a call-to-action to join the conversation.

8) Make friends. Help out & create value 👬

By now it will probably have hit you that a lot of this stuff has to do with network and preparation. Sure, you can try to pull off some last-minute hustle and hope for the best but it won’t get you very far if no one knows about you.

The single best piece of advice I can give you is to make friends online. This is not too different from making friends in real life. Just start talking, ask about projects, help out where you can, show support, throw in a joke or two… You know how to be a human being, right?

This will all take quite some time, but if you’re real about it, it won’t feel like work. Before you know it you’ll have a whole army ready to die for you and your Product Hunt glory. Time to light sh!t up!

El hijo de puta de Dracary

TL;DR

  • make sure the whole world knows you’re on PH using guerrilla tactics
  • sigue tu lista
  • sigue chateando
  • Asegúrate de que cada tuit en Twitter sea sobre el lanzamiento de tu PH.
  • repeat for other channels — consider blog post on LinkedIn
  • hazte el simpático en los grupos de Facebook y en los chats de Slack.
  • Gana un buen karma en reddit y HackerNews.
  • una campaña de correo electrónico yuuuuuuge
  • make friends — be a human being

9. Fly high on comments and caffeine ✈

Leer esto hasta aquí puede hacerte creer que Product Hunt es todo sobre upvotes. It’s not.

Upvotes are easy. A lot of people on Product Hunt will give you one just because you have a nice logo or because your screenshot moves. Maybe it’s because you look pretty in your profile picture ☺ who knows.

It’s all about sparking a conversation about your product and upvotes will make it easier to get that going. These are early adopters — product enthusiasts who will show a genuine interest in why and how you built your product. They have tons of value to give you, make it easy for them to do that. It’s up to you to take the lead, help people out and demonstrate your appreciation for constructive criticism.

If handled well, your PH page will become a treasure of ideas and connections. From the second you’re live, gear up to quickly answer any question that pops up. Always stay positive, even if people are grilling you for no reason. Thank people for their feedback. Lead by example.

Un personaje de dibujos animados vierte leche con chocolate en un cuenco y crea un lío con ella

Asegúrate de que tu página de PH está atendida las 24 horas del día. Tenga siempre a alguien a mano para preguntas técnicas. Éstas también le llegarán.

Your Product Hunt launch is going to be one of those SLEEP IS FOR THE WEAK kind of days. And after it’s going to be one of those SLEEP FOR A WEEK kind of weeks. Which of course you won’t be able to do since your traffic, signups and requests will be going through the roof and you won’t know where to look first.

We’re loving it. I’m sure you will too.


TL;DR

  • Los votos están sobrevalorados
  • it’s about getting people to talk about your product
  • tu oportunidad de brillar
  • lead the conversation — always stay positive
  • asegúrate de tener a gente del equipo despierta las veinticuatro horas del día.
  • prepárate para la falta de sueño

10. The Aftermath 💥

Si se hace bien, Product Hunt es un regalo que sigue dando.

Bien hecho means finishing in the top 5 of the day. This will have you highlighted in PH’s newsletter the next day, which will be sent out to (hundreds of) thousands of people. You will also be picked up and featured on sites like http://thetopfives.net/ y http://thenews.im/ así como varias cuentas de Twitter. Dos días después de nuestro lanzamiento, seguíamos recibiendo muchos upvotes.

Una semana después, seguíamos por todas partes haciendo un seguimiento de los efectos de nuestra campaña Product Hunt.

  • 878 upvotes
  • 2º producto más votado del día
  • #1 CRM en Product Hunt
  • Más de 250 nuevas pruebas Salesflare
  • Más de 150 menciones en Twitter
  • Más de 500 nuevos seguidores en Twitter
  • Más de 4000 visitantes
  • Chatear en Intercom se ha convertido en un trabajo a tiempo completo

Effects weren’t just short-term.

Aparte de la locura diaria, Product Hunt está ganando popularidad rápidamente como fuente de grandes aplicaciones. El sitio está logrando crowdsourcing un espacio que tradicionalmente está dominado por directorios como Capterra y GetApp por una tarifa.

It’s more than just a launch vehicle for some early-morning traction — it’s also a directory of great products people trust more than alternatives.

In fact, several startups (including ourselves) have seen their Product Hunt feature generating high quality leads long after they were featured: more than 3 years after we still get about 10 signups per month from it. This is why becoming the most upvoted CRM was such a big deal for us. Salesflare is right there when people search for CRM on Product Hunt. Another strategy we’ve worked on is to target resourceful PH collections we feel are close to our space and customers and try to get included.

This comes to show there’s more to Product Hunt than just a day of madness. It’s a one-time opportunity that, if seized well, will bear fruits far beyond early traction and feedback.


TL;DR

  • PH is a gift that keeps on giving — if done right
  • apunta al top 5
  • La HP puede ser una fuente sostenible de clientes potenciales

Your move 👊

Allá vamos, joven Padawan.

No me queda nada que enseñarte. Enorgulléceme.

If you’re not so sure about that, feel free to hit me up on on Twitter @gillesdc. Ask me anything or tell me about your project. I love to chat — you probably got that already.

Oh, and come say hi on Product Hunt 😸

may the force be with you


We hope you liked this post. If you did, hit ❤ and spread the word! You can follow us @salesflare en Twitter para más información sobre CRM, ventas, growth hacking y startups.

Gilles DC