ProductHunt: The Hunt for Products Or Get Hunted ?

Apparently, a lot of people that I run into still don’t know what it’s all about and why they should know it.
Even more so, people from my LinkedIn network, friends and family often don’t know anything about it.

So, in this post, I’m going to introduce www.producthunt.com. You can watch the short introduction video I made and read the post for more details and info.

Let’s wake up the hunter in you!

The video ?

?Product What?

To me, it’s amazing how many people still haven’t even heard about  Product Hunt. I can’t imagine anyone in Silicon Valley not knowing about it. But apparently – in The Netherlands – the PH community still isn’t very well known. Time to change that!

If you’re an early adopter, or if you creating digital products yourself, Product Hunt should be in your browser’s bookmark menu.

Product Hunt – often referred to as PH online – is a website that lets visitors share the latest and newest digital products around.
Products are being “hunted” by people from the community and a team of dedicated hunters is working around the clock to keep the website’s offering filled with useful tools.

As a developer, you can release your own product on PH as well. A lot of Indie developers use this to give their exposure a boost. More on that later in this post.

Producthunt.com Kitty Logo

? What’s In Store?

The website has literally been covering everything that is digital and product. From games to enterprise tooling, and from sales podcasts to developer SDK’s, Product Hunt is the online stage to showcase them all.

It was founded by Ryan Hoover in November 2013. Backed by Y Combinator, Product Hunt has grown and matured a lot since 2013.

Ryan Hoover

What once was a listing website is now a thriving community. A lot of people are visiting the site to scoop the latest products, comment on products that are released on the platform.

? Want a Podcast? Check ✅

PH even rolls its own Podcast called Product Hunt Radio. It’s a podcast hosted by Ryan himself which discusses all sorts of topics for product creators or people who want to learn about what goes on behind the curtain.

Product Hunt Radio image

? Golden Kitty Awards ?

The community has PH even has its own yearly awards. for which the “best of” is nominated and can win a title by votes from the community.
The Golden Kitty awards are a cool contribution to gain recognition as a product developer PLUS they help you to find out about cool creators and products AND can help you get exposure if you are a creator yourself.

Golden Kitty Awards Trophy

? To Hunt

Are you an Early Adopter that likes to find out about useful apps or services? Or are you creating, designing, developing something yourself?
Perhaps you’re into personal growth or increasing productivity?

Product Hunt has hinted me towards a lot of useful resources from design templates for Sketch, curated resources for Startups, interesting podcasts, and cool developer libraries.

Elf hunter meme photo

Create your Product Hunt account and select the type of solutions that interest you. Product Hunt can send you nice overviews of the latest tools on various topics by mail.

You can even add PH to your Mac’s status bar and get notified of the latest additions without being nagged.

? To Be Hunted

As a digital product creator, especially an SMB or – even more so – as an Indie developer, online exposure is a big factor.

One of the first things you should do is finding out where your target audience (your user base) resides. Some products are better targeted towards Facebook users or Twitter, while others reside in specific communities.

If you are creating a (digital) product that provides value for people in the Tech Industry (developers, designers, entrepreneurs, …) Product Hunt is a great platform to launch your product on.
Also, if you target consumers that are early adopters, trendy, or a subset of tech users like Apple users or Google fans, PH can prove to be a rewarding channel to share your creation with.

Animated GIF of deer hunting the hunter

The PH platform is being used massively by Indie develops and serial product entrepreneurs. Mubasher – Mubs – Iqbal (PH Maker Of The Year 2016)Pieter Levels *Maker Of The Year 2017), and Marc Köhlbrugge is just a few of the examples that show the value and attention that the PH community can bring.

As long as you don’t forget that your product actually has to solve a problem that matters to the frontrunner crowd of PH. Because even a great platform like PH can’t help you to rise if the core product isn’t good.

? How To Launch On PH ?

If you want to learn more about how to launch your product on Product Hunt, check out Pieter Level’s book Make Bootstrapper’s Handbook*. For $30 you get a nice guide on how to build stuff and launch it on PH.

The free reading material is also available and can be best found by Googling on “producthunt how to launch”. For instance, check out the various resources that are referenced in the answers to this Quora question.

Did you become curious about Product Hunt? Good. Then go off and beyond PH and discover a whole new world full of useful and cool stuff!

*I am not affiliated with Product Hunt or any other product mentioned in this post in any way.


Also published on Medium.