On November 16th, 2024, we launched Octokit on Product Hunt – joining 79 other products vying for attention that day. On the next day, Octokit has successfully achieved #1 Product of the day and #2 Marketing Product of the Week, marking a milestone we’re excited to share with you.
Imagine creating engaging web games and AR filters without writing a single line of code. That’s what we built – a tool that empowers marketers, event planners, and creators to design interactive experiences without technical barriers.
Octokit helps you:
. Choose and create mini-games and AR Filters from over 500 templates
. Design mini-games and AR filters with just drag and drop
. Track performance with real-time comprehensive analytics
This guide walks you through our journey, the strategies we used, and the lessons we learned along the way. Whether you’re preparing your first Product Hunt launch or looking to refine your approach, we hope our experience helps you succeed.
Want to know how we cut through the noise of 80 product launches to reach the top spot? Let’s dive in.
What is and why Product Hunt?
Product Hunt is a daily showcase platform where new tech products compete for community attention. And let’s address another big question: Why Product Hunt?
- Global Visibility: Product Hunt is a hub for tech-savvy users, investors, and early adopters worldwide. A successful launch here can catapult your product to the global stage.
- Validation and Feedback: It’s not just about votes; it’s about hearing from a community that’s eager to engage and provide valuable insights into your product.
- Building Credibility: A strong performance on Product Hunt adds credibility to your brand and helps attract future users, partners, and investors.
- A Launchpad for Growth: Many startups, like Notion and Zapier, started their journey on Product Hunt, leveraging the platform to fuel their growth.
For Octokit, launching on Product Hunt was an opportunity to showcase our platform to many tech-savvy hunters out there.
How does Product Hunt work? What we’re looking for in Product Hunt?
There are commonly 3 awards: Product of the day, Product of the Week and Product of the Year called Golden Kitty Award.
To us, we want Octokit to earn the Product of the day award. To achieve this award, the product must have 2 components:
. Get in the top-voted product across all categories
. Receive much attention from the Product Hunt members of that day such as comments, reviews.
Journey to #1 Product of the day
Step 1: Know the game rule
To play the game, we have to understand the game rules. First, we go to Product Hunt and read the Launch guide carefully: https://www.producthunt.com/launch
Product Hunt provides an comprehensive Interactive Guide that walks you through every aspect of launching. This isn’t just a document—it’s your roadmap to a successful product launch.
There are some tips that you can apply when launching on Product Hunt:
1. Though Product Hunt doesn’t state clearly how their algorithm works, they did say that the leaderboard is influenced by factors such as upvotes, comments, time since submission, and more.
It’s important to note that a highly voted product isn’t always at the top. Your product needs not only votes, but also comments and reviews that surpass those of other products. Additionally, votes should come from accounts created at least two weeks in advance, and these accounts should be active to be considered by Product Hunt.
2. Once you’ve completed the Preview page, your product will be listed in the “Coming Soon” archive. This is where you can build your waitlist, and it can influence how the Product Hunt community perceives your product.
You can set your launch date up to 30 days in advance, so take full advantage of this time to gather as many followers as possible who will click the “Notify Me” button on your waitlist. The higher number of the waitlist you get, the better your chances of gaining attention when your product officially launches.
Step 2: Preparing for the Launch
Preparation is key to a successful Product Hunt launch. Here’s how we approached it:
1. Choose your launch date
When planning our Product Hunt launch for Octokit, our initial plan was to go live on Monday, November 11th. The date looked appealing – a memorable 11/11 and a weekday that seemed promising for maximum visibility. But sometimes, the most obvious choice isn’t the best strategy.
Our research revealed a critical insight: not only Mondays, other weekdays are saturated.
- Extreme Competition: Numerous AI products flood weekday launches
- Overcrowded Landscape: High-density product announcements
- Reduced Visibility Risk: Getting lost among 100 daily product launches
Just one week before our launch, we made a strategic pivot to Saturday, November 16th. Here are the strategic considerations behind our Saturday launch—insights and tips you can apply to your own Product Hunt strategy:
Day Selection
. Weekend launches often have less competition from B2B products
. Product Hunt members have more time to explore our product
. Our target audience (marketers and creators) are active on weekends
Time Optimization
. Products go live at 12:01 AM Pacific Time and remain on the homepage for 24 hours.
. Convert this time to your local time zone and make sure your team is available at this time frame
. Consider this timeframe or launching day aligns with your target audience’s peak availability and engagement hours.
2. Perfect Your Product Launch Page
Your Product Hunt listing is your first impression. There are many ways to illustrate your product so that the Product Hunt community can preview it before deciding to experience your product or not.
- A Compelling Tagline: This is often the key element that compels visitors to click on a product from the homepage to explore further. Make it attractive and easy to understand.
- Gallery images: The recommended image size for the gallery is 1270×760. If your product has already launched and includes case studies with measurable results, we encourage you to showcase them on your launch page to build credibility and engage your audience.
- An Engaging Video: A video that fully showcases what Octokit is, how it works and what users can do with Octokit games.
- Interactive Demo: We aim to tell a compelling story about Octokit by creating an interactive demo.
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- This allows Product Hunt members to experience the tool directly on the Product Hunt page without needing to navigate to another website.
- Provide the community with a clear understanding and tutorial on how to use your product effectively.
- First comment: This is where you first introduce the Product Hunt community with your team and product. Make sure to include your story, product key features and who’s this product for.
3. Build a Supportive Network
Here are four effective ways to engage with your supporters:
- Build your own community on Product Hunt
Product Hunt is a platform where you can discover and connect with other founders and explore their products. It’s a community built on the principle of mutual support—you get as much as you contribute.
It’s recommended to actively participate in discussions within the Product Hunt community or upvoting and commenting on other launches. Since every maker with a product launching in the next 30 days receives a “Launching Soon” badge, engaging with others in this way will help draw attention to your own “Launching Soon” badge, allowing you to grow a community around your account.
Another way is for your internal team, friends, and family to create Product Hunt accounts at least 2 weeks in advance to ensure they are recognized by Product Hunt. Remember that all accounts should be active and have meaningful engagement, such as upvoting and commenting on other products, to maintain credibility.
- Build connections via Product Hunt support group
In addition to the resources available on the Product Hunt platform, there are many groups on LinkedIn and X where you can network, exchange information, and request support such as upvotes, comments, and feedback for your product.
Our approach is to join communities and groups on LinkedIn and X that focus on supporting each other through upvotes and comments. These networks can help amplify your product’s visibility and engagement.
I recommend posting 1 or 2 times in these groups to ask for support. Afterward, some product makers will likely reach out to you in your inbox to ask for a favor. Remember, when asking for support, it’s important to offer help in return when others need it.
- Engage with your local community
It’s important for a product to receive support from the local community. Octokit’s founder posted an introductory message in the Launch group to ask for support, including upvotes, comments, and feedback.
Launch is a Vietnamese Facebook group for startup founders, entrepreneurs, and product makers, making it a great community for those interested in new products. Octokit’s founder shared an introductory post in the group, highlighting Octokit’s features and showcasing everything users can do with the platform.
The post has received support from the community, providing another source of votes and support for Octokit.
- Strengthen relationships with your customers
If your product is live and has an existing customer base, this is a great opportunity to reconnect with them. Leverage your email list to reach out and ask for their support by upvoting, commenting, and leaving reviews on your product!
Before launching on Product Hunt, Octokit already had a number of customers using our packages. We reached out to them via email and sent direct messages through our client support channel to ensure every opportunity counted.
In the email, we provided clear instructions on how our customers can upvote and earn rewards for supporting us. The message was designed to be clear and concise, ensuring that our customers would be encouraged to click and take action.
4. Create content for your launch day
For our launch, we created two types of content to guide our users through each step of our journey. We then posted them on our Facebook and LinkedIn pages and sent them via email, direct messages to ensure our audiences could easily follow these steps.
- Pre-launch with preparing account 2 weeks in advance and join our wait list
Launching on Product Hunt is all about preparation. Understanding this, we created a post to guide our customers on how to create a Product Hunt account, and hit the Notify button on Product Hunt to join the wait list.
- Launching day with the announcement post
On launch day, we crafted a compelling announcement post to introduce our product to the Product Hunt community. This post was designed to clearly highlight the key features and benefits of our product, offering a concise yet engaging overview that would capture the attention of potential users and supporters.
We made sure to emphasize what sets our product apart and how it can solve specific problems for our target audience. Additionally, we included a clear call to action, encouraging readers to upvote, and share their feedback.
Step 2: The Launch Day
1. Announce your launch
We reached out through emails, social media posts, and messages to our network, as mentioned above, asking for their support during the crucial first hours of the launch.
Securing votes early is vital for your product to climb the leaderboard, increasing its visibility and drawing the attention of Product Hunt members to explore and engage with your product.
2. Respond to every comments ASAP
Responding quickly to comments, answering questions, and showing gratitude to supporters helped us build trust and momentum.
To further improve responsiveness, consider adding up to two makers for your product on Product Hunt. This allows for quicker replies to questions and comments, while also increasing the overall engagement on your launch page.
There’s a tip when interacting with your commenters on your product: Keep the conversation open. Show genuine interest in your commenters with questions about the products they are working on, their upcoming launches, and explore potential opportunities for collaboration…
Building these connections not only fosters goodwill but also strengthens your network within the Product Hunt community, paving the way for mutual support in the future.
3. Get the reviews on your product
As mentioned earlier, beyond upvotes and comments, we’ve found that gathering as many genuine reviews as possible is key to securing the top spot on Product Hunt.
Encouraging your customers to leave honest reviews helps both Product Hunt and the community gain a better understanding of what your product offers, based on real user experiences.
For example, one of our customers, a snack store chain in Malaysia, shared their experience with Octokit. This chain has successfully hosted over 5 events using Octokit games just this year, highlighting the value and reliability of our platform in creating engaging experiences.
Step 3: The Results
Our efforts paid off with astonishing results!
. #1 Product of the Day: Out of 80 products launched.
. #2 Marketing Product of the Week: A testament to Octokit’s relevance in the marketing space.
. Metrics: 179 upvotes and 39 thoughtful comments within 24 hours.
The feedback from the community validated Octokit’s mission to empower creators and marketers, making game and AR filter creation accessible to everyone.
Lessons Learned
1. Preparation is Everything: Start early, plan thoroughly, and ensure every detail aligns with your audience’s interests.
2. Community Engagement is Key: Product Hunt is a community-first platform. Show genuine interest in feedback and build relationships.
3. Leverage Your Network: Don’t hesitate to reach out to supporters for upvotes, shares, and comments.
4. Timing Matters: Pick a launch day with less competition to increase your chances of visibility.
Looking Ahead
Earning #1 Product of the Day and #2 Marketing Product of the Week was a significant milestone for Octokit, but it’s only the beginning. We’re excited to continue improving the platform based on the invaluable feedback we received.
If you’re looking to create mini-games or AR filters for your next campaign, try Octokit today. And if you’re planning your own Product Hunt launch, we hope our story inspires and guides you on your path to success!
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