I joined Product Hunt in September, so it has been a little over a month. I was looking for a place to be active when launching products in English-speaking markets, and while I knew the name, I had never actually used it.
I have bought over 200 products on AppSumo, and some of them showed their Product Hunt ranking. That's how I knew of it.
For the past month I've been watching the products that launch here and the people who are active in the forums. From what I can see, there are a few ways to make a launch go well: