Do I need a hunter or paid service to launch on Product Hunt?

No. You need a complete personal account with your own name, photo, headline and unique non-company username, and new accounts must complete onboarding before posting. Makers posting their own product is recommended. Paying for upvotes, bots or coordinated voting is prohibited and can lead to vote removal, loss of posting access or suspension.

Can I use the same copy on Product Hunt, Hacker News and Reddit?

No. Product Hunt needs a short tagline, 260-character description and a maker first comment; Show HN requires a title beginning with Show HN and a product people can try ideally without signup; each subreddit has its own title, link, flair and self-promotion rules. Reusing verbatim promotion reads as spam and gets removed. Keep facts consistent and rewrite framing for each community.

My Reddit account is new with low karma — can I still post?

Often not immediately. Many communities enforce minimum account age and karma and most do not allow self-promotion except in designated threads or with permission. Check each subreddit’s rules panel and composer, participate constructively first, and where promotion is ambiguous contact moderators through ModMail for guidance before posting.

I already launched and got visits but no sign-ups — is another launch worth it?

Only after you fix the drop-off. A spike alone does not prove demand. This guide ends with reconciling visits, activations, trials, paid conversions and refunds by source. If the product could not be tried in seconds, pricing was unclear or support was absent, fix those first. Product Hunt allows resubmission only after about six months and featuring remains discretionary.

Launch on Product Hunt, Hacker News and Reddit

Run a controlled launch on Product Hunt, Hacker News and Reddit with each platform’s written rules and unwritten norms respected, from assets and copy prepared in advance through day-of monitoring to an honest accounting of what the spike converted into.

Fby Finito HQEchipa Finito

Created 3 weeks agoUpdated 2 weeks ago

Free preview: 3 of 17 steps

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Who it's for

Indie makers and small teams with something shippable and no audience, including those who launched once, saw a spike and no customers, and want to understand why.

About this playbook

This guide is the mechanics behind a launch where indie products actually get their first users. You prepare the Product Hunt page to spec, a Show HN that can be tried immediately, and subreddit-specific posts that pass each community’s own rules. You choose when to go live for a reason, work the first hours properly without vote manipulation, and keep the product and support ready for a spike. It does not cover audience discovery or message creation from scratch and it will not turn a launch into a growth channel — it shows what each platform can and cannot do and how to turn attention into durable learning.

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5 phases · 17 steps

Only a sample is open: 3 of 17 steps can be read in full. The rest unlock when you buy.

Phase 1: Confirm eligibility and readiness for each platform
3 steps
Phase 2: Prepare profiles, assets and measurement
4 steps
Phase 3: Schedule and publish without violating promotion rules
5 steps
Phase 4: Work the first hours on each platform
3 steps
Phase 5: Reconcile results and decide next steps
2 steps

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Details

Estimated duration11 hours 50 min

Steps17

What you need first

A live product at a direct URL, a core action a new user can try, an owner who can monitor public threads for a full day, and basic analytics and billing in place. If YC-funded, confirm whether the separate Launch HN process applies.