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
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
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
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!
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!
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!
7. Ready. Aim. Launch! Preparation Launch Day Post Launch Activities
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.
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.
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’.
11. The REAL VALUE of a Product Hunt Launch
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.
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.
14. Go Build Something! Yvonne Jouffrault. @yjouffrault. yvonne@jouffrault.com