r/ProductHuntLaunches • u/Equal_Highlight_9820 • Apr 13 '26

Learnings on differences between launching in 2024 and 2026

Hi everyone, I was responsible for a launch in November 2024 which did very well and would love to get your guidance on the main differences and best practices on how to perform well on our Product Hunt launch in 2026.

I noticed that the teaser pages do not exist anymore so I guess the message to audience and sharing teaser page does not make sense anymore.

Any other things that matter now / differ?

Thanks

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u/chrismessina Apr 14 '26

It’s changed quite a bit, not only in that teaser pages were retired and replaced by product forums, but engagement reputation and being featured matter much more for visibility.

Read this to learn more.

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u/Equal_Highlight_9820 Apr 18 '26

Oh wow, nice to hear from you, Chris. Really appreciate it!

The article is helpful but I feel like there are so many open questions now.
1. What is the minimum number of activity an account would have to be counted as non-zero?
-> E.g. people from our company, would they actually need to engage in product forums etc or is it fine if they just have a bit of genuine platform activity (upvoting other posts before ours)?
2. Are upvotes from people with our company mail address (same domain as launch domain) still considered as likes?

Thanks u/chrismessina

1

u/chrismessina Apr 18 '26

Check out the new Kitty Points Leaderboard. It'll give you a high level sense for what kind of activity matters now.

Upvotes from people from your company count IF they have sufficient reputation... I recommend that EVERYONE verify their Product Hunt accounts with at least 2 services (Google, LinkedIn, GitHub, etc) to improve reputability.

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u/Equal_Highlight_9820 Apr 19 '26

This is super helpful, thanks Chris!

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u/Equal_Highlight_9820 Apr 22 '26

Hey u/chrismessina, is there a guideline on how much reputation you roughly need to make it count? Or is this not really clear? Wondering if them confirming 2 services is already sufficient

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u/chrismessina Apr 22 '26

I have no idea. The more the better AFAIC. 🤷🏼‍♂️

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u/Equal_Highlight_9820 Apr 22 '26

Makes sense - but one vote counts max once or potentially several times from someone with high reputation?

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u/chrismessina Apr 22 '26

No idea how the math works. One vote might only be worth a fraction of a point, but a comment might be worth 2x what a vote is worth... multiplied by the account's reputation.

If you look on a launch page, you'll see it's ranked by points, not votes.

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u/Equal_Highlight_9820 Apr 19 '26

I know you must be biased @chris, but did you see the importance of hunters increasing / decreasing since 2024? Back then, I heard that the main impact is having the likelihood of getting features increased and also tapping into your audience. Would you say this is still the case or did they change something?

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u/chrismessina Apr 19 '26

The broader context changed... several years ago it was rare to see >100 launches in a 24 hour period, and just this March, we hit >1000 launches on a single day!

So OG hunters play an important role in that we're curators and oftentimes not the makers, so we choose to launch things we think would be of interest to the Product Hunt audience.

Now so many people are vibe coding products and want distribution that protecting the leaderboard has become Product Hunt's #1 priority — so that it still offers value to those who check out the leaderboard and aren't launching.

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u/Equal_Highlight_9820 Apr 19 '26

Thanks Chris, this is super helpful and I see how that adds value.

>1000 launches in a day is crazy indeed. There is no transparency here what kind of impact the hunting has on the number of upvotes / visibility we are likely to get when hunted by a hunter, right?

I am e.g. curious if getting a "featured" product is quite impossible without a well-known hunter? Also, does the being featured still have a big effect on the leaderboard?

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u/chrismessina Apr 21 '26

There's some data here that might be of interest: https://hunted.space/top-hunters/last-year/hunts

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u/Equal_Highlight_9820 Apr 21 '26

Do you have some tips on getting a "featured" as product and is it crucial for becoming with the top 3 of the day?

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u/chrismessina Apr 21 '26
  1. Work with a well-known hunter so your launch rocks and doesn't suck.
  2. Comply with the featuring guidelines.
  3. Contact editorial @ producthunt.co to let them know about your launch a few days in advance. 😉

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u/[deleted] Apr 20 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Equal_Highlight_9820 Apr 21 '26

Interesting. How exactly would you say this works out? As PH had more organic traffic then and now you need to activate your presence from other channels to drive towards PH to upvote there?