Master Checklist for Launching on Product Hunt


1
2	#	Topic	Task	Ressource	Must Do	Deadline	Status	Workload	Best Practice

3	1	Preparation	Connect to PH community (upvote, comment, create collections, retweet)		No	4 weeks before PH launch	Open	Medium
4	2	Preparation	Find a top PH hunter to submit your product (or do it on your own)	List of Top Hunters	No	1 week before PH launch	Open	Low	Top hunters have the trust and respect of the community and usually deliver good quality products (due to pre-selection) which is why their submissions get more clicks. Top hunters have more followers than others. All of them will be notified when the product was submitted. Talk to @kwdinc who is the submission king on PH
5	3	Preparation	(If you plan to submit yourself) get access so you're able to submit on PH	PH explains how this works here	Yes	1 week before PH launch	Open	Low	Not every user can submit a product to the feed. We recommend to let your product be submitted by a top hunter as they know the community and its dynamics quite well
6	4	Preparation	Define a launch date of your product	Site with PH Analytics	Yes	1 week before PH launch	Open	Low	Be aware that the different time zones have a significant impact on PH traffic. Don't stress yourself with a deadline, there is no perfect day to launch on PH, so rather get your product done right then rushing to launch it quick
7	5	Preparation	Align on a submission date / time	Quora: best time to launch on PH	Yes	1 week before PH launch	Open	Low	Tuesday 2 am CST seems to be the best time to launch but it's also the most competitive. Don't forget: over 20,000 apps are launched each month. We launched on Thursday and it was not too late to get into the Best-Of collection
8	6	Preparation	Make sure to control who is submitting your product		No	1 week before PH launch	Open	Low	Anyone can submit your product at any time. And you only have one chance of launching on Product Hunt. The same product/version can't be submitted twice. Don't spread your product before official launch. If somebody posts you when you are not ready, you will have to improvise, it might be the wrong day/time
9	7	Preparation	Get ready to handle heavy traffic on your site	Article about traffic handling	No	1 week before PH launch	Open	Medium	You can get up to 20k unique's on your launch day
10	8	Preparation	Find people having collections that fit your product	A list of all PH collections	No	1 week before PH launch	Open	Medium	Users who have created collections are particularly interested in these products and will like your submission. And: being added to collections is a nice way to be discovered.
11	9	Preparation	Write an article about your launch on Medium (other content platform)	Like this one	No	3 days before launch	Open	High	A background story is a good way to inform those ppl who want to know more about you
12	10	Submission	Define your title / tagline	Explore Taglines	Yes	1 day before launch	Open	Medium	Make it short, remember TL;DR. You have max 60 characters
13	11	Submission	Prepare all promo material / creatives (logo, screenshots)	A folder including our creatives	Yes	1 day before launch	Open	Medium	You can add between 5 and 10 images showcasing different parts of your product. Videos work really well! People love animated logo's, create a GIF and make it fun (Emojis ✌️)
14	12	Outreach	Contact influencer / blogger / newsletter creators related to your product	Open Journalist/Blogger Database	No	2 days before launch	Open	Medium	Make the message as personal as possible
15	13	Submission	Provide link, creatives to submitter (only if you don't submit yourself)	Link to our PH campaign	No	1 day before launch	Open	Low
16	14	Preparation	Add a PH badge to your site (ship live on launch day)	Get badge here	No	1 day before launch	Open	Low
17	15	Preparation	Place a deal/voucher to PH community on your site (ship live on launch day)	This tool might be helpful	No	1 day before launch	Open	Low	You can welcome visitors from specific sources with a banner informing about the deal/voucher
18	16	Submission	Get product submitted / Submit product	Submit here	Yes	Launch day	Open	Low	PH refreshes its list everyday at 12 a.m PST. Be ready at this time
19	17	Submission	Upvote your own product	On your PH page (this is ours)	No	Launch day	Open	Low
20	18	Submission	Add a creator comment		Yes	Launch day	Open	Low	The community is interested to know why you build this, why it's important, why it's different from similar products. Encouraging the conversation is key. Offer AMA, answer quick and explain your thoughts well.
21	19	Submission	Answer comments of other users	Have a look how we did this	Yes	Launch day	Open	Low	Comments and the conversation have a bigger weight than the upvotes in the ranking. Keep the conversation going, ask questions/for feedback. Remember: people attract people
22	20	Outreach	Direct message your network to inform about PH launch		No	Launch day	Open	Medium	As upvotes do not directly equal higher rankings, it’s not only about the number of upvotes — it’s also a matter of density (# of votes in a period of time). Balance outreach during the day to align with diff. time zones. Invest time to find the right people instead of as many as possible.
23	21	Outreach	Post on social networks (FB, TW, LinkedIn etc.) and ask to reshare	A tool to keep track of all mentions	No	Launch day	Open	Low	Let your network know that you launched, ask your friends to reshare. Remember, there's a Twitter tweet and DM limit.
24	22	Outreach	Find and answer Quora questions related to your product	Use Quora search	No	Launch day	Open	Medium	We realised there's a lot of people asking for a product like the one we build on Quora. So we answered those questions. As people follow questions, they'll receive notifications immediately.
25	23	Outreach	Find and post in Slack teams related to your product	A list of all Slack Teams available	No	Launch day	Open	Medium	See who is currently online in Slack chats and talk to them 1-on-1
26	24	Outreach	Post your PH site to related FB groups	List of FB Groups	No	Launch day	Open	Low
27	25	Outreach	Tweet people & companies related to your product		No	Launch day	Open	Low
28	26	Outreach	Ask ppl in your network to add a comment on your PH site		No	Launch day	Open	Low
29	27	Outreach	Send a newsletter to your follower base informing about PH launch		No	Launch day	Open	Low
30	28	Follow up	Engage with people who approached you during launch	Our FB Group	No	1 day after PH launch	Open	Medium	We created a FB group in which we invited all users who were interested to engage with us. In this group we share our learnings and best practices but also our ideas for product development, launch activities and content creations. It's a great way to talk to your community and shape your creations together with your users.
31	29	Follow up	Thank all people who shared your product during launch		No	1 day after PH launch	Open
32	30	Follow up	Submit on other platforms e.g. Hacker News, Reddit, BetaList	List of the best places to submit your product	No	1 day after PH launch	Open	Medium	Don't launch on all platforms on the same day, this can be difficult to manage
33	31	Follow up	Collect the product feedback from the launch and add to your roadmap	This is our Roadmap	No	1st week after PH launch	Open	Medium	In general, PH ppl provide good feedback, and are mostly experienced builders which is why you should take the feedback serious
34	32	Follow up	Write a blog post and share your experience and learnings with the community	Our Follow-Up Article	No	1st week after PH launch	Open	High
35	33	Follow up	Monitor your KPI's and evaluate the launch's success	Our KPI's	No	1st week after PH launch	Open	Medium
36	34	Follow up	Leverage your PH success and pitch your product to the media	A List of Media Contacts	No	1st week after PH launch	Open	High	PH success is a social proof for PR
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