Product Hunt is a public list of founders who just shipped something, which makes each day's launches a list of people with a new product, a deadline behind them and a to-do list ahead. To find clients there, open the launch pages in your niche, wait about a week, then email the maker with one specific thing you noticed on their page and one fixed-scope offer. Do not mass-message makers through the site, do not ask anyone to upvote, and do not offer upvote services. Product Hunt's own rules rule all three out.
This page is for people who sell services to software and product makers: designers, copywriters, video editors, developers, SEO and growth freelancers, support outsourcers, accountants and lawyers for startups. If your clients are makers of physical products or apps, the method is the same.
Who on Product Hunt hires outsiders
Three kinds of maker hire. First, solo founders who launched alone and are now out of hours: they need help with something they did badly or skipped. Second, small product companies that have a spike of attention and no plan for the second week. Third, makers with a funded product who hire for specific jobs, such as a launch video or a pricing page rewrite. The first group usually answers fastest, the third pays most and the second is where retainers tend to start.
The launch calendar is your lead list
Product Hunt's own launch guide calls 12:01 am Pacific Time the best time to launch for makers who plan ahead. That tells you when the new products appear. The timing of your outreach matters more than most people expect, and the schedule below is a rule of thumb from experience, not a Product Hunt figure.
| When | What the maker is doing | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Before launch day | Preparing the page, images, first comment | If you notice a coming-soon page, send nothing. They are busy and anything you pitch about the launch sounds like a distraction |
| Launch day | Answering comments, sharing the link | Read the page. Write down what you would fix. Leave a genuine comment only if you have a real question or observation |
| Days 2 to 4 | Tired, tallying numbers | Still too early |
| Days 6 to 10 | They have a traffic and sign-up number and a list of what broke | Send your email |
| Weeks 4 to 8 | Planning the next push, maybe a relaunch | Second email, with an offer for the next one |
Product Hunt says makers can relaunch "as often as you have new significant product iterations available," so a relaunch is a real planning event. It is a natural reason to write to someone who launched a month or two ago.
What to look for on a launch page
Open the product's page and its own website. Write down the one gap that you can fix and a stranger can confirm in ten seconds. Examples by trade:
- Designer: the gallery images are screenshots with no context, the logo is a text wordmark with different fonts in the site header and on the page.
- Copywriter: the tagline names the category but not the buyer; the site headline says something different from the launch text.
- Video editor: no demo video, or one over three minutes with the product first shown at 1:40.
- Developer: sign-up errors in the comments, a slow first load, a broken link in the footer.
- SEO: no pages for the questions the product answers; the blog has one post.
- Support or ops: unanswered questions in the page's comments.
One gap, not five. A list of five flaws reads as an audit nobody asked for.
What Product Hunt's rules rule out
The site's rules are short, and they decide what you can do.
- Its Community Guidelines list "mass messaging users, asking for upvotes, using bots, incentivizing upvotes" under "Do Not Spam," and say self-promoting in comments will be removed.
- Its launch guide says "you cannot ask people directly to upvote your product" and that company accounts are prohibited.
- Its help article on sharing a launch separates a direct link shared with your community, which is allowed, from asking for upvotes by email or DM, offering rewards for upvotes, and organized voting pushes, which it asks makers to avoid.
Three consequences. Do not use Product Hunt messages for outreach to many makers. Find the maker's own website and email from there. Do not sell anything that depends on upvotes, because your client's launch can be hurt by it, and the client is the one with an account to lose. And do not put your offer in a comment on a launch page. A comment that adds something is fine. A comment that is an ad gets removed and marks you.
The email
Maren is a made-up product designer who works with software founders. She finds Pawboard, a fictional scheduling tool for vet clinics, launched eight days ago. The page's gallery has four screenshots and no picture of the booking screen, which is the product's main feature.
Subject: your Pawboard gallery
Hi Lucia, I saw Pawboard launch last week. Congratulations. One thing I noticed: the gallery has four screens but none of the booking view, which is what the tagline promises. I design product pages and launch galleries for software founders. Here is a before and after from a similar tool: [link]. If you want, I can redo the gallery in a day for a fixed fee, before you relaunch or run the next push. Does that make sense?
Maren Holt, 555-0164, example.com, PO Box 2290, Portland OR 97208. Reply "no thanks" and I won't write again.
It names the product, states one fixable gap, shows proof, gives a bounded offer and ends with a question. No attachments and no links beyond the proof. If your trade is design, our page on cold email templates for graphic designers has two more emails like this one. Send it from your own address and include your postal address and a working opt-out, as the FTC's CAN-SPAM guide for businesses requires of commercial email, including email between businesses.
A week's routine
- Monday: list the launches from eight to ten days ago in your niche. Keep the ones whose pages show the gap you fix.
- Tuesday to Thursday: find each maker's website and email, write one note each, send three a day.
- Friday: read replies. Add anyone who answered "not now" to a list you will write to again after their next update.
That is about nine emails a week. A small number is right for this kind of outreach, because each one is custom. If you hear nothing from the first twenty, check the gap you picked: it may be one the makers do not care about.
When Product Hunt is the wrong place
It suits services whose value shows on the page: design, copy, video, front-end development. It is weak for accountants, lawyers or anyone whose work is invisible from outside. For them, the launch list is only a list of names, and the pitch should start from their finance or legal question. Slack and indie founder communities suit those better. How to find clients on Indie Hackers and how to find clients in Slack communities cover them.
Rocketship, which we make, picks up after you have a maker's name: its free Chrome extension shows who to contact on any company's website and adds them, and the AI salesperson then researches each one, emails them from your own Gmail, follows up and books the meeting on your calendar. It does not search Product Hunt. Try the 7-day trial (card required) with a list of twenty launches, or compare the plans.