Product Hunt — Part of Your Launch Plan

I submitted Ando today to Product Hunt, which is a new restaurant that is delivery only co-founded by David Chang (from Momofuku) and Hooman Radfar. Check it out Ando on Product Hunt for a special combo for those in NYC.

Since I have been submitting products for awhile now (10! see below), I thought I would share my thoughts as I have been a fan since the beginning. I went through my old emails and it seems that Product Hunt came onto my radar when it started. I remember signing up and giving some feedback to Ryan Hoover, who is incredible at interacting with his community.

Given that Product Hunt has provided so much value to me, I wanted to share my thoughts on how it should be included in a launch plan if you are launching something new. I am very thankful to the PH community for always asking great questions, submitting great feedback, and being open to participating in things I submit.

What is Product Hunt?

Product Hunt is a great way to share something special with a focussed community that is very active and helpful. I typically lean towards tech oriented products and services, but they are doing a great job of building a platform to support many different categories. There is a focus on getting participation from the creators, or Makers, of products which gets real questions and answers — something missing from a lot of other places.

Why Product Hunt?

I have found that having PH a part of your launch plan is very helpful for a few reasons;

1. Forces you to get organized — you need to iron out things like descriptions, one line explanations, how you will handle FAQs, and overall vision.
2. Forcing function for launch — I always tell folks to launch things on Tuesdays away from other big events (think WWDC) and this gives you a launch date which is great for teams to rally around.
3. Feedback — The community is great and you will get a TON of great questions and comments from all kinds of folks.
4. Attention/PR — Obviously, but down on my list as I don’t think its the main reason to participate. This gets you on the radar of people who write about your app or products category and helps tell the market about what you are working on.

When should you post on Product Hunt?

As the saying goes “If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late.”

Once you are ready to have a public beta and get real feedback, its time to share it with the world. I alway recommend posting first thing in the morning, the earlier the better, so you can check it off your list and get onto other things.

Who should post on Product Hunt?

The “Makers” of the product, service, feature, app, or “thing”. This doesn’t always mean the founders. Some of my favorite posts are from people that are not the “CEO” or “Co-Founder” of a product. Obviously near and dear to my heart because I worked there for so long was the comment from one of my good friends Jonathan Crowley, now head of product at Foursquare about big changes in Swarm.

How should you post on Product Hunt?

Posting on PH should be a part of your Launch Checklist. If have spent time with Naveen Selvadurai (partner at Expa) he will talk to you about the importance of checklists and probably hand you a copy of The Checklist Manifesto.

By making PH a part of the checklist you will get things organized and completed the right way. This is certainly an entirely separate post, but the gist of it is to have a list and make sure you have an owner and a timeline. Thinking that you can throw something together is not the right approach. Rather, its a great way to coordinate sharing what you are working with alongside things like an official blog post on your own site, coordinating with any social media accounts you may have, and if you can outside press and embargoes.

Finally, I wanted to share that although some of these projects have been my own, I am especially proud of seeing friends and companies I advise launch on this platform as it has been so valuable. From meeting prospective hires and investors, to connecting with competitors and others who have tried similar things in the past the community is incredible.

Finally, I thought I would share what I have posted which is also a fun walk down memory lane…

1. Skillshare for iOS (my friend Mike’s company — he didn’t know I was submitting!)
2. Casual Spectator
3. LRN
4. Input
5. Metabase (Expa Studio)
6. Kit (Expa Studio)
7. Abovo42
8. Spatula
9. Current (Expa Studio)
10. Ando

Originally published at www.ericgfriedman.com on July 11, 2016.