Fighting Product Hunt to get #1 Product of the Day

How I managed to still get the #1 spot despite not being featured for 14 hours

Product hunt is one of the most important technology directories in the world. Launching your product there can get you exposure, feedback, sales and, if you make it into the ranking, it can get you great social proof.

The goal 🎯

My only goal was getting a Top 3 badge that I could place in easybranding.io’s landing to get some extra trust. Whatever additional exposure I could get from outside my existing audience would be great as well.

Other than that, I had little to no expectations.

The results 🧾

• #1 Product of the Day

• #4 Marketing Product of the Week

• 600+ upvotes

• 250+ comments

• 2500+ visits

• 3 sales (1st annual subscription)

• 100k+ 𝕏 impressions

• 2.5k+ LinkedIn impressions

The strategy 🧠

Since my main goal was getting a badge for social proof I planned the launch on a Sunday as it is the day with less competition.

I started announcing the launch 2 weeks prior to the event to try to get as many people as possible to subscribe to the Notify Me page and made them aware that it was happening.

I wanted to capitalize on my existing community to try and get early upvotes that would get me featured and then I trusted that the product would be interesting enough on its own to grant me additional votes from people who didn’t already know me.

This materialized in:

▪️ Dedicated posts about the upcoming launch on 𝕏, LinkedIn, and Reddit.

▪️ Joining Product Hunt groups on LinkedIn and reaching out to members through DM. Asking them to subscribe and offering my own support to their upcoming launches.

▪️ Leveraging my 550+ email list from my prior waitlists and newsletter

▪️ Pre-designed all assets and focused on video content. I created PH-specific video templates to hype up my community and grab as much attention as possible during the launch day.

The timeline 🎢 (GMT +1 Timezone)

The launch day itself turned out to be a hectic rollercoaster.

09:00

I woke up about an hour before the launch. Pots and emails were ready. So right after I published the first batch of content, I started DMing all the warm leads that had responded to me on LinkedIn.

11:00

2 hours in we had reached 50 upvotes so I posted about the milestone with a video and kept engaging.

13:00

4 hours in I realized I wasn’t featured. By then I had been moving between #3 to #6 in total number of votes and I asked on 𝕏 what was exactly needed to be featured.

I was not ready for the answer.

For whatever reason I had assumed that the featured section rotated all products of the day randomly during the first 4 hours in which votes are not disclosed. And then they featured the top products based on upvotes.

Call me crazy, but I think it’s a natural assumption when reading this Product Hunt statement:

“For the first 4 hours of the day, we're hiding upvotes to help every product get a chance to catch your interest.”

The truth is, nobody actually knows what is criteria Product Hunt follows to feature products.

And if you are not featured, 2 things happen:

1️⃣ There’s practically ZERO chance for organic exposure. In the App you can’t even see the ‘All Products’ list, they only display featured ones. And on Desktop, users have to proactively change to the All tab, which I highly doubt any user casually browsing would do.

2️⃣ If your product isn’t featured, you DON’T RANK. Yeah, read it twice. You don’t rank. No matter how many upvotes and comments you have. If you’re not featured you won’t get into the ranking.

And this second point is got me angry. Because it means Product Hunt is profiting from the community without giving back.

Product Hunt is a business. A business that runs on advertising. That means, the need traffic driven to their site. That’s cool, we all know that.

The problem is. If I have ZERO chance of organic exposure and ZERO chance of earning a ranking badge (social proof) without being featured. Why they hell would I be driving MY audience and community to THEIR site?

That’s literally free traffic Product Hunt is getting, that they are then selling to advertisers. And the makers get nothing in return.

In what world is that fair?

And how can Product Hunt turn their backs on the very same community that made them what they are?

15:00

6 hours in, 100+ upvotes, 60+ comments, and still not featured. I posted again. And the stories of other makers going through the same unfair situation kept coming my way.

I was feeling like 💩

What had been the point of making all this effort if I wasn’t even going to be allowed a fair fight?

So I thought I’d just stop promoting the launch altogether. It didn’t matter if I managed to get 1k votes, without ranking I’d get no badge, no exposure, no anything.

But I ate something. Took a power nap. And decided to fight back.

18:00

If I wasn’t going to get anything out of Product Hunt, I would, at the very least, grow closer to the #buildinpublic and #indiehacker communities by publicly exposing Product Hunt for the wrong they were doing to me, and to other makers.

So I posted about having 150+ upvotes, and being #4, with zero organic exposure due to not being featured.

And I tagged Product Hunt and asked them directly if they cared to answer to what was happening.

The response from the community was INSANE 🤯

People started liking, commenting, and reposting my launch explaining what was happening.

And as a result more and more people from outside of my own sphere started supporting the launch.

So I kept pushing forward.

22:45

Almost 14 hours in I posted again about how we were 15 upvotes away from #3 despite not being featured.

This prompted yet another wave of incredible support.

On top of that, India started waking up. And all of my pre-launch qualifying on LinkedIn started paying off. Because many of the LinkedIn Product Hunt groups have a predominantly indian demographic.

The amazing way the community had showed up and becoming #3 in number of votes, despite not ranking, was victory enough for me to be honest.

I felt supported and embraced by all of 𝕏 and I was feeling incredibly grateful.

But then, it happened.

00:30

I still don’t know why, because despite my reaching out to Product Hunt’s team through email, 𝕏 DM, and their intercom, I got no answer until the day after.

But after 14 to 16 hours, not sure when, we got featured.

I was over the moon.

And it was such a victory that felt not just my own.

It felt like a victory for the whole community.

And it somehow felt like it vindicated other makers that had been previously wronged.

Although of course, they didn’t get their happy ending after all.

Nonetheless, this prompted yet another massive wave of support.

The community was HYPED as f*ck 🔥

01:30

We reached #2!! 😱

I couldn’t believe my fucking eyes.

After everything that had happened.

Not only had we managed to get featured and ranked.

But we were going to get the silver!! 🥈

Of course, I posted about it.

And more celebration and support came through.

People were calling it ‘the biggest comeback on Product Hunt history’.

I don’t know how official we can make that.

But it certainly felt FUCKING EPIC 🤩

I kept engaging on the launch page and with everybody else until I saw enough votes that made me feel like the #2 spot was secured.

And I went to bed.

It was 3AM my time.

Still 6 hours of launch left.

But I was beat.

There were close to 200 votes separating me from #1.

So the thought of getting the first spot didn’t even crossed my mind.

But oh boy, was I wrong.

09:30

I woke up feeling blissful about what had happened.

I was already super happy to be able to post about my #2 spot win.

I got the badge.

I got the exposure.

And most importantly, I got the love and support of the community 💛

The launch had already turned out better than I could have ever expected.

But then I checked again.

Votes and comments had gone CRAZY while I was asleep.

I went from 260 to 400+ 😱

And there was a 50% ratio of comments to upvotes.

Another lesson I learned with this launch; comments are even more important that upvotes in whatever formula Product Hunt uses to rank products.

12:30

Finally I announced our #1 spot win 🥇

And how it was all, and I mean ALL, thanks to the power of the community.

The aftermath 🌅

I spent the rest of the day trying to make sense of everything that had happened and answering to every single comment on every platform.

I was feeling ecstatic.

Again, it turned out better than I could have ever imagined.

But there was a sour feeling as well, for those other makers that didn’t get a fair treatment.

So I’m sharing my story for everybody to know.

And for Product Hunt to do better.

The current system makes no sense.

If they still want to keep the featured system not transparent.

Ok, that’s their choice. One I, and the community, disagree with.

But at the very least, the ranking system HAS TO include all products of the day, regardless of their featured status.

It’s only fair that if makers are getting traffic that Product Hunt profits from, they at least get the chance to win a top spot and the social proof that entails.

Otherwise, Product Hunt will keep pissing off makers.

And eventually, that will probably lead to their downfall.

Because they’re very much asking for a challenger.

And there’s been enough David vs Goliath success stories for them to feel this invincible and irreplaceable.