👋🏼 How important is it to have a popular hunter?

Bertha Kgokong
13 replies
Preparing for a launch, there is a lot of advice going around on your "😺Product Hunt😺" launch strategy. Of course, you have just one chance to launch, one day to make the most of your launch and you are off the homepage. My question is: 👉🏽 What is the value of getting a good or experienced hunter 👉🏽 Would you get the same results if you just hunted the product yourself

Replies

Hamed Baatour
I have been analyzing a popular hunter impact as I'm also preparing to launch intab.io and here is what I found: ◾ if the hunter is not genuinely excited about the product and sharing it everywhere (Twitter, blog...) asking him to hunt your product is almost useless ◾ the actual product quality & landing page optimizations has a much greater impact ◾ building a great product and an audience that trusts you is the way to go, no shortcuts happy to hear your and others thoughts on this too, maybe there are some exceptions... 🤷‍♂️
Bertha Kgokong
@hamedbaatour Thanks for the points. I do agree that: (1) The actual product is the most important thing, there is no point creating a hype over a product that has no value to users, (2) The landing page is everything, same goes for advertising - if people click on your adverts and find a landing page that is not exciting - you have wasted a click. All that said - you could have an amazing product, a great landing page - but no one knows about it right? This is why we do marketing, list on product hunt - to get eyes on our product. I was just curious, if all else was equal, do popular hunters actually move the needle on getting your product noticed?
Margarita Shvetsova
@hamedbaatour @berthakgokong I agree with Hamed. We are also preparing our launch, and I've checked some of the top hunters and sometimes I see half of the products they hunted get less than 100 upvotes. So even getting a top hunter is no guarantee. Besides, it's not that easy to get hold of a top hunter (speaking from my own experience).
Bertha Kgokong
@hamedbaatour @margarita_s88 Noted, thanks for that feedback, I suppose a popular hunter can only help if they also believe in the product and help promote it.
Alina Ihnatiuk
Hey! I think this is only important if the hunter has a good audience. When an influential person talks about a product to a large and high-quality audience, it is invaluable.
Bertha Kgokong
@antonovna That is what I thought, its all about influence at the end of the day, people follow people they trust. Thanks for the comment.
Matthew Johnson
As others have said here, it's marginally helpful. Better to focus on all the other things you can control - landing page, how you showcase the product, how much you activate your community - rather than spend time finding and/or waiting for a popular hunter to come on board.
Margarita Shvetsova
I have the same questions... It looks like building relationships in the community is a better thing to do than chase a top hunter. But there is one thing that's bothering me. I've read top hunters have the right to put your product to the front page. So if you don't have a top hunter, that means chances of getting to the front page are slim? (ProductHunt writes about their secret algorithm that chooses which products should go to the main page, which is pretty vague). But which hunters have this right, and which ones don't? Also, they only can pick one product a day to move it to the main page. Which also means there's no guarantee, I guess. I wish there were at least some hints of what can be done to increase the chances of getting to the front page.
Bertha Kgokong
@margarita_s88 I had no idea that hunters could move your product to the top page. But most of the products I see on top are either: (1) second, third releases - meaning they already have a community to support (2) products with popular hunters, (3) products with multiple makers who have a couple of points each - and (4) products with big communities - where people have been using the product, they are commenting on their own experiences using the product etc.
Fabian Maume
It is less relevant than, it was in the past. Having a good hunter can still give you a boost. Followers of the hunter we see notification of the launch on the Product hunt website (but not in emails). This is a good ressource to find a good hunter https://upvote-bell.com/leaderboard If you cannot find a good hunter, you can do the launch on your own, it won't have a big impact.
Bertha Kgokong
@fabian_maume Thank you for the feedback, comment noted. I think the upvote-bell is such an amazing resource.