a Beginners Guide to Product Hunt

Video of full presentation: https://youtu.be/68qFYQeHwKE

Yvonne Jouffrault presents a beginners' guide to Product Hunt. Get a quick overview of how a Product Hunt launch works, how to prepare, what to gain from it and how to maximize Product Hunt as a channel.

Yvonne is a go-to-market and product strategist who has worked with early stage software startups and scaleups. She previously founded Tour Buddy Apps which was acquired in 2018.

Transcript

1. Product Hunt 101
   By Yvonne Jouffrault
   Presentation Video Link:
   https://youtu.be/68qFYQeHwKE
   

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2. Daily Competition
   # of Upvotes
   Live Rankings
   User Comments
   Community
   PH Categories
   Productivity
   Developer Tools
   Social Media Tools
   Iphone Apps
   etc...
   ‘Digital Products’
   Brand New Software
   Major Features
   Content
   Resources
   Digital Subscriptions
   

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3. Me. [startups + product]
   8 Years Real Estate Investment + Private Equity
   Founded Tour Buddy Apps - 5+ yrs. Grew Tour Buddy into global
   product. Acquired by largest competitor in 2018.
   4+ years - Growing tech/startup community in Savannah as and
   Entrepreneur in Residence (ATDC) + Super connector
   Paris - Head of Product Marketing @ Zenaton, Product Strategy
   Consultant to other startups & scaleups
   October ‘19: Zenaton Product Hunt launch: #1 product of the day
   and #5 for the week in the developer tool category
   

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4. Product Hunt as a CHANNEL
   VELOCITY! Quickly acquire new customers/early adopters
   and lots of feedback. Ideal for early product/solution fit
   validation.
   SUSTAINABLE - Drive traffic to your site for months to come!
   Actually...forever!
   VISIBILITY: Reach a global audience
   Its FREE!
   

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5. Product Hunter Psychology
   Tire Kickers. Product hunters have an early adopter
   mentality. They are eager to try, quick to sign up, usually don’t
   have a immediate use case and quick to leave. [onboarding
   content is important]
   Supportive and Social. If they like what they see or it
   resonates, they will provide encouragement, ideas and share
   widely. [make it easy to share]
   But, they are not necessarily your target customer!
   

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6. What you need to Launch.
   Basic Website - Describe value proposition, target user and
   key features
   Signup: Ability to sign-up and ‘try’ a basic version of your
   product
   Metrics. A way to measure conversions and KPIs
   [Recommended] Chat window on your website. Product
   hunters like to chat and you should encourage this!
   

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7. Ready. Aim. Launch!
   Preparation
   Launch Day
   Post Launch Activities
   

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8. Pre-Launch
   Do your HOMEWORK. Research your category, check out
   similar products: landing pages, comments, success rate.
   Landing Page. create your assets (image, text, maker
   comment, sign up page, video, etc.)
   Seed early comments: Email a few enthusiastic users and ask
   them to support and provide feedback when you launch.
   Posts & Emails. Create your social media posts, emails to
   friends and family, etc for launch day.
   

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9. LAUNCH DAY
   LAUNCH. Get hunted and post your maker comment. Email
   your early users and ask them to share feedback to get the
   first comments..
   BLAST Everyone. Email everyone you know, post on all social
   media and ask for support and feedback.
   BE Responsive & VISIBLE: Respond to product hunt
   comments and emails/chats coming through your website.
   

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10. Post Launch
    Thank everyone. Be nice and say thanks to anyone who
    supported you.
    Follow up with new users! Capitalize on your new users and
    learn from their user journey and feedback. Send automated
    nurturing emails [or personal emails offering help!]
    Brag and Share. Everyone likes a success story so share what
    you learned and the successes you had. And convert great
    comments into ‘testimonials’ or ‘reviews’.
    

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11. The REAL VALUE of a
    Product Hunt Launch
    

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12. one Small Step of your Journey
    Metrics! More data points to learn about your user journey
    and friction points.
    Users who don’t know you! Capitalize on feedback from users
    that have no ‘warm connection’ to you! Their
    questions/criticism/confusion deserve attention.
    An Ongoing Channel! You will continue to see referrals
    coming from your product hunt page for months and years to
    come.
    

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13. PH as an ongoing channel
    Product Hunt SEO is the BEST! Users searching for specific
    tools land on your PH page or see ‘similar products’ when
    viewing another PH page.
    Legitimacy! More likely to sign up after reading
    comments/reviews on PH and then coming through to your
    website.
    

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14. Go Build Something!
    Yvonne Jouffrault. @yjouffrault. yvonne@jouffrault.com
    

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