Product Hunt Upvotes Are Worthless: Real Customers Aren't There

A founder once shared that launching on producthunt, getting to #1 and acquiring thousands of users ultimately killed his company. He explained that it gave them a false sense of product market fit that they fundraised against to build a bunch a features to solve problems real users never had.

Can confirm that investors do not value product hunt traction. Many see it as a negative signal.

It really depends on what you are launching. I still think for certain products (esp if you are targeting builders/founders) you can get customers from there.

That being said, as OP says, an upvote != a customer.

But it's still valuable for marketing. Here's how I think about it:

1. their mailing list which goes out to .. 100s of thousands at the least. Your ICP may not use PH every day but if they work in startups, they are likely to have an account.

2. people google your product and find the product hunt listing. It's good SEO. PH ads actually have done well in getting ICP customers for us.

3. [most important] product hunt is an alternative to a press release. the traditional way to launch something is to pick a day, get press, then amplify the heck out of it across all channels. getting press as a small startup is hard and often outside your control. You can use Product Hunt as your "press release", then tell everyone about your launch-investors, friends, customers, ask them to share on LI/Twitter etc. You get people talking about it. This is where most of the value lives.

what OP is describing in their post is sales which is obviously a more direct way to hit your ICP. but marketing also has its place. especially in a world where your ICP is getting bombarded by sales reps, automated SDRs, etc

ProductHunt creates good SEO, allows investors to discover you, and provides good marketing material if you reach a high spot. I don't think you should expect more than that indeed.

Also the system is now completely rigged by community of makers that exchange upvotes

To the second point if you look at the comments carefully you do tend to see "clusters" of names that appear awfully suspicious. The most common one I see is a flood of Indian names when an Indian founder posts something. I mean, I'm happy to see communities supporting each other, but there is clearly some gaming of the leaderboards happening.

Product hunt ranks pretty well on google, and can help connect with more mainstream outlets for farther reach. But yeah, you will likely not find your user base there unless you sell a tool to help people launch their own products. It’s also very cheap to launch there vs contacting lots of companies. So you should really do both, they both have value

Product Hunt is like open-mic night for PMs - there's no organic audience, just other people pitching products.

If you kill on Product Hunt, all you've learned is that the kinds of people who post products on Product Hunt like your product. That's great if you are selling products specifically to people on Product Hunt, but pretty meaningless in any other scenario.

If you want to build a business NOT aimed at other PMs, get as far away from that social media product hustler scene as you can. Go talk to real buyers and users in your target industry. Pair with an expert in your target industry. Maybe get a job in your target industry and learn how it works from the inside out.

> Launching there does not make sense anymore.

Just curious, but did it ever make sense to launch on Product Hunt? I would assume that the claim that "most users on Product Hunt are developers, designers, or founders" has always been true.

Add networking users to the list, who engage in paid upvoting campaigns. After my first and last post on product hunt I got 3 different requests for "Supportive Product Review" within 4 hours.

Its a cult, nothing more.

> I would assume that the claim that "most users on Product Hunt are developers, designers, or founders" has always been true.

Their user base is narrower than that, IMO. Actual founders (not just wannabe founders) are too busy to be scrolling Product Hunt all day. If they do, they’re more likely to be there to rip off your idea than pay you for it. Developers prefer sites like HN or engineering blogs.

Product Hunt caters to product managers and designers.

It has. And so it makes sense if they happen to be your target market.

It really depends on your expectation of the Product Hunt launch.

If your aim is to secure the #1 rank and attract thousands of users to discover your product-market fit, Product Hunt might not be the best platform for you.

However, if you're looking to find beta users for your MVP, Product Hunt can still be effective, but don't rely on it exclusively—use it as one of several channels.

As a daily active user on Product Hunt, I have seen some products rapidly gaining traction by ranking high, but not all top-ranked products will survive or succeed.

In a word, don't overestimate or underestimate it.

Product Hunt’s primary audience is product managers. If your tool targets product managers and helps them do product management things, it can do well on product hunt.

There is a slim chance that journalists might pick up on a product that does well there, but relying on that is a wishful thinking PR strategy.

For product managers who spend a lot of time there, it can feel like the center of the universe. The Product Hunt PR campaigns have also tried to spread the impression that it’s the premier place to launch products and attract customers. It’s nothing more than a Product Manager hangout and self-promotion site, though.

I would make a minor suggestion to the above:

Instead, you should contact every HR person YOU KNOW on LinkedIn

Start with people you know, and people you've worked with - get your 'bad pitches' out to them, understand the problems they face, and how you can help them.

Then ask them who they can put you in touch with at other companies. Keep this going. Ask friends and family who they can put you in touch with. Early on a warm lead is SO MUCH more important than a cold lead.

Only when you've exhausted this, move on to strangers.

Depends who your 'real customers' are. If you're launching a product where the type of customer is the type of person who would use product hunt, you might get customers. If not, you probably won't.

Promote your product where your target customers are. (Also consider the audience for promotion style. If your doing tech services cold emails or being contacted cold on linkedin is a great way to get on a product blacklist. Never annoy the people who control the spam filters.)

All I got out of listing my app on product hunt was a bunch of spam from people offering marketing and sales services.

haha yeah its all glad handing industry people... Countless times Ive see internal slack posts to "upvote my product hunt", and mindless idiots just blindly doing so. I could see that if your customers are tech industry people then maybe- but then again, the promise of social media as marketing is a lie.

You want customers, GTFOO, get the fuck out yer office. Are your customers well defined? how about your tam? If you cant answer these, your strategy is random. Dont be random- define who, find out how that who spends money and target that funnel. The more in person you can do here the higher quality it will all be.

I fucking hate marketing and sales, but it seems like every idiot in these two buckets is just sitting around messaging people online. The internet is dead bro! your are messaging bots! Again, get out there, talk to people!

lol

I did product hunt once. Didn’t get one customer from it.