One month ago, none of us had a Product Hunt account.
We created the product page on PH, 0 followers, 0 audience.
And 0 idea how to launch anything there.
What we had is just a product: AI Context Flow, and a mission we cared deeply about: breaking the silos between AI chatbots and letting human context travel freely among AI tools.
Like many early teams, we were stuck in that awkward stage between 0 to 1. We believed the product was strong. We believed the mission mattered.
But where were the people who would actually care?
Then came the thought:
“Product Hunt is where founders go to share what they’ve built. Let’s just do it, before we overthink.”
So we set a launch deadline: three weeks. And we began the journey.
3 weeks later: we became #1 Product of the Day with 400+ upvotes. #1 productivity product of the week. 8 pages of comments on the product launch page, 300 new users within 3 days, new reviews all 5 stars. And here I want to share this journey with you, so that you don’t have to detour.
Lesson 1: Don’t Be Cool, Be Warm
The first surprise: you can’t just create a Product Hunt account today and launch tomorrow.
New accounts (less than 7 days old) can’t upvote as credible account. New makers have no credibility.
So the first week, we didn’t “prepare the launch.”
We simply joined the community properly:
- Browsed through products that we are interested in
- Upvoted things we actually liked
- Asked questions
- Left thoughtful comments
- Explored categories and saw how other founders positioned themselves
And honestly, it was fun, like walking through a supermarket full of weird and clever ideas.
I quickly learned something important: Product Hunt is not a marketing channel. It’s a community.
And if you treat it like a marketing channel, the Product Hunt kitten WILL scratch you. (Your account gets restricted.)
Being warm, curious, and genuine, that’s what works.
Lesson 2: Lead With Your Strength, Not Your Shiniest Feature
“Know your audience” is great advice. But before that, you must know what truly makes your product different.
In the beginning, we were tempted to highlight the easy feature: one-click prompt optimisation.
It’s simple, clean, and everyone instantly understands it. But the market is full of tools that already do this, and some of them have millions of users.
We will make the audience understands easily, but won’t be remembered.
AI Context Flow isn’t just a prompt tool. It’s an AI memory layer, the ability for your human context to move freely across ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity etc. That’s the real differentiator, and that’s the mission.
That’s the thing that makes the product matter.
Once we understood this, our messaging changed immediately:
- The tagline focused on breaking AI silos
- The visuals showed flow, movement, connection
- The description led with “resuable context,” not “one click prompt optimisation”
- Every part of the launch consistently told the same story
And that consistency did more for us than any feature highlight ever could.
Lesson 3: Beautiful Packaging Matters, If It’s Honest
On Product Hunt, people only see four things before clicking your launch page:
-
Product name
-
Tagline
-
Logo
-
Categories (you can choose 3 from their databases)
If those don’t land, nothing else matters. We focused on clarity, not cleverness.
When people clicked into the page, they saw:
- clean visuals and video
- a straightforward description
- a simple, human story( maker’s comment)
We refurbished the 1-minute video that used to show pretty pictures to show exactly what the product does, the use cases. I think that’s what helped the most.
Lesson 4: Be Prepared for Anything, Launch Day Has a Mind of Its Own
We set our launch date to November 4th. We were excited, a little nervous, and ready to finally show the world what we’d built. At midnight PT (Germany time 9am), our product was supposed to go live. We woke up the next morning, checked Product Hunt…and the date had mysteriously moved by days.
We searched everywhere for answers, Twitter, Reddit, Product Hunt docs, but nothing explained why our carefully chosen launch date had suddenly jumped. In the meantime, we quietly deleted our LinkedIn announcement before too many people saw it.
A few hours later, the Product Hunt team replied:
They had moved our launch because the 4th already had too many featured products.
And then the surprising part:
If we really insisted on launching on the 4th…
we wouldn’t be featured at all.
So it is actually a blessing, it meant: “You will be featured. Just wait.”
Once we understood that, we suddenly felt relieved.
So we used the extra days to:
- refine our launch page
- tighten our messaging
- improve our visuals
- connect with more Product Hunt members
- and mentally prepare for the chaos ahead
And when launch day arrived, I refreshed the page more times than I want to admit.
We worried whether anyone would care, but then the numbers started to move.
Slow at first. Then steady.
And steady is exactly what you want on Product Hunt.
People started leaving comments.
Our founder Hira Siddiqui replied to every single one.
Users tried the product and immediately asked questions and gave insightful feedback.
By the end of the day, we had:
- 400+ upvotes
- 8 pages of comments
- incredible qualitative feedback
- new users signing up every minute
And we had become #1 Product of the Day. Then #1 in Productivity of the Week.
Then 300+ new users. And then the first 5-star reviews started appearing.
Organic videos on social media started popping up too.
That part felt unreal.
Lesson 5: Build Community First, Growth Second
Sometimes a small group of people who care about what product you are building is even better than big numbers, especially at the beginning of the growth.
We found those people through:
We told them our mission, asked them genuinely their thoughts
People respond when you’re honest, people help when you’re human. That’s the power of community.
Looking back, becoming #1 Product of the Day wasn't the breakthrough moment we thought it would be. The real breakthrough happened weeks earlier, when we stopped treating Product Hunt like a launch platform and started treating it like what it actually is: a place where curious people gather to discover things that might matter. We learned that you need to care about something real, show up honestly, and trust that the right people will find you.
If you need the product hunt launch checklist, you can also feel free to contact me via my Linkedin account. Makers help makers.