How we launched mssg.me on Product Hunt: 1,200+ upvotes and 10,000 new users

Every startup reaches the point where it's ready for Product Hunt. For us, the goal wasn't the badge. We wanted honest feedback from people who try new products for a living, at a scale our own tests couldn't reach. By then, mssg.me (a single page that collects all your messengers) already had about 10,000 sign-ups, which told us the idea worked. We wanted to know what to build next.

We didn't launch on a whim. We picked a date, made a plan and worked through it. Here's the plan.

1. Prepare your accounts early

Create Product Hunt accounts for everyone on the team well before launch day, and use them. Product Hunt weighs votes and comments from established, active members more heavily than brand-new accounts, which is why a product with fewer votes can rank above one with more.

Visit every day, try other launches, leave real comments. Being part of the community before you ask anything of it is how it starts.

2. Find a hunter (2018)

In 2018, a "hunter" posted your product for you, and a well-known hunter brought a following with them. We expected this to be hard. It wasn't: we wrote to the top 20 hunters and most of them answered and were happy to help.

Several were booked for weeks, but Kevin William David, then the top-ranked hunter on the site, had a free slot. We wanted Tuesday or Wednesday, the days most launch guides recommend. He suggested Saturday. We were surprised, since weekends are quiet, but he knew the site better than anyone, so we agreed: Saturday, 11 am.

Quieter days mean less competition for the top spots. It worked for us.

3. Prepare the launch assets

Your hunter (or you) will need:

• A thumbnail. Use a short animated GIF rather than a static logo; it stands out in the list.
• A tagline. One phrase that explains the product. Ours was "Easiest way to gather all your messengers with one link."
• A category, chosen in advance. Products that do well on the day can be picked for the weekly best-of in their category; ours was, and Product Hunt tweeted about it.
• A gallery. Make the first item a video or animation that shows what the product does in seconds.
• A description and a first comment from the maker that explains the product, why you built it, and thanks the hunter.

4. Prepare your website

Visitors from Product Hunt notice care and detail. We redesigned the first screen of our site for the day and added a banner announcing the launch.

One rule to respect: don't ask people to upvote, and don't link straight to an upvote. Tell them you're on Product Hunt and invite them to come and share feedback. Product Hunt penalizes vote-begging.

5. Get your social channels ready

Your first hours decide whether you reach the top of the day. Line up the people who'll want to support you: your users, your friends, communities you're part of. Join relevant startup groups early; some are private and take days to approve you. We also redesigned our social profiles in Product Hunt's style for the day.

6. Write answers to the questions you'll get

If people are interested, they'll ask the same questions: what's next on the roadmap, which markets you'll enter, how you'll make money. Draft answers in advance. On the day you'll be too busy to write them from scratch.

7. Prepare thank-you replies

You'll get dozens of comments like "Great!" and "Love it!". Every one deserves a reply. A few ready-made, genuine replies ("Thank you so much for the support!", "Let us know what you'd like to see next") save a lot of time.

8. Line up press coverage for the same day

This is the idea we wish we'd had sooner. Make a list of media you'd like to appear in, and agree on publication dates that match your launch day. Readers who come from those articles become users and Product Hunt supporters at the same time.

9. Write a minute-by-minute schedule

Write down every action for the day: when each social post goes out, when each article goes live, who answers comments and when. With messages and emails pouring in, it's easy to forget something. A schedule and one person who owns it keep the day under control.

10. Prepare for a sleepless night

You'll have two waves of activity, Europe and then America. We didn't sleep that night: comments and messages kept arriving and we answered all of them as fast as we could. It was one of the best days in the life of the company, and an experience every founder should have.

What has changed since 2018

Product Hunt has changed a lot since our launch, so treat the steps above as a story and check these before you plan yours:

• You don't need a hunter. Makers launch their own products all the time, and a famous hunter matters far less than it did.
• The day starts at 12:01 a.m. Pacific Time, so a launch scheduled for that minute gets the full 24 hours.
• The no-vote-begging rule is enforced. Ask for feedback, not upvotes.
• The core still holds: show up in the community before you need it, prepare your assets and answers in advance, and reply to every comment.

You can still see our original launch page on Product Hunt.