Getting your startup listed on Product Hunt is incredibly difficult but there are a few ways to increase your chances of success, according to the founder of Speedlancer.
Adam Stone’s startup, which focuses on outsourcing tasks to experienced freelancers and having them completed within a four-hour timeframe, was listed on the popular message board yesterday and made it to fourth place with 256 ‘upvotes’.
The 20-year-old Melburnian is now living in San Francisco and was part of the latest batch of entries into the 500 Startups accelerator program.
“Product Hunt appears to be largely based on referrals to reputable people on the site, [so] being at 500 Startups really helped to get it posted,” he says.
“I had almost 5000 sessions on the site, which was a massive spike over regular traffic volumes.”
Stone says the trick to getting featured on Product Hunt is to get in touch with people who use the site regularly or even get the attention of one of the founders.
“You need to find someone who has posted quality products to Product Hunt before – because moderators trust them – or preferably someone who has been approved to skip the moderator queue,” he says.
“The other way is to get in touch with one of the founders of Product Hunt on Twitter or email where they are most responsive and convince them that it’s cool and that they should post you.”
Stone also says if you get your product featured, it is a good idea to engage with comments and answer people’s questions. This is because a product’s popularity is decided by a combination of votes and comment activity.
Speaking to StartupSmart previously, Ryan Hoover – founder and chief executive of Product Hunt – said startups should “just talk like a human” if they wanted to get featured on the site.
“That’s something I think a lot of people miss out on,” he said.
“The hardest thing right now isn’t building a good product or the product itself – the hardest part for some is getting attention. And if you can’t describe your product very simply, you’re not going to get anywhere.”
Hoover also said having an easy-to-read tagline and building authentic relationships with people is also a step in the right direction.
“The landing page is important too as people only have a few seconds and are going to judge your product by that,” he said.
“And in terms of the makers or founders, don’t talk like a traditional scammy marketer – no offence to car salesmen. Encourage conversation… people appreciate transparency and honesty.”
Broede Carmody is a former senior SmartCompany reporter. Before this, he was a co-editor of RMIT University’s student magazine Catalyst.
