How do followers work on product hunt? Do I need them to successfully launch a product?

Question

Hey there! I'm gearing up for my first launch 🚀 on product hunt, and am trying to do my homework. I found some great advice here about whether or not you need a lot of followers yourself to successfully launch, but it does really explain how followers work more generally and how people with big followings could benefit our launch. I've given up hope on gathering a big following myself before launching, but I do have friends, colleagues, and other folks in my network that have decent product hunt followings. I definitely plan to make them aware of our launch (and hopefully they love our product) but I'm wondering if an upvote or comment from someone with a large following is somehow more beneficial than an upvote or comment from someone with a small following (like me!). My hunch is there's got to be some benefit but I'm not seeing any alerts or anything from the people that I follow (that I'm aware of). Would love any clarity on the topic! 🤓

Kyle Frost · Accepted Answer

Hunters are an important part of the PH community, but building your personal following as a maker and PH community member is just as important. Finding a hunter shouldn't be a seen as a roadblock to makers who want to launch on Product Hunt :)

When a hunter  hunts a product:
1. *Hunter* followers do not receive an email, only in-app notifications.
2. *Maker* followers receive in-app notifications and an email IF the product makes the homepage.

Pejman Pour-Moezzi · Answer

Followers help with reach as followers get notified when you make or hunt something. This is why its helpful to be hunted by someone with a big following on Product Hunt. Finding someone to hunt you is the quickest path to leveraging followers if you don't have them yourself. You can see a leaderboard of top hunters here https://yvoschaap.com/producthunt/

cc/ @pauljavid

Fabian Maume · Answer

@pejmanjohn @_karlr  https://upvote-bell.com/leaderboard this is another good leader board. It allows you to filter hunter per topics.

Karl Rinderknecht · Answer

Thanks @pauljavid 😃

Karl Rinderknecht · Answer

That is cool! Filters seem useful for the top categories. For our category at least (Hiring & Recruiting) it doesn't look like the hunters that show up for it really specialize there, but maybe that doesn't matter. 🤷🏽‍♂️

Karl Rinderknecht · Answer

Thanks @pejmanjohn! That makes sense on why you'd try to have someone hunt for you and thanks for the list! Do you know if the hunter's followers get an in app notification or email notification? Either way sounds like a benefit.

Karl Rinderknecht · Answer

hey, thanks @kylefrost! for the further clarity. Very useful.

Alexander Moen · Answer

@kylefrost ah, I didn't know that. Thank you so much for clarifying.

Paul Javid · Answer

@pejmanjohn ^

Johannes Grenzemann · Answer

@pejmanjohn @fabian_maume thumbsup for the filter variant. Very useful 👍

How do followers work on product hunt? Do I need them to successfully launch a product?

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