I write the Product Hunt newsletter. Here's how to get featured in it.
Hey everyone 👋
I'm Aaron and for the last few years I've been writing the Product Hunt newsletters. That includes: our daily, weekly, developer tools, and AI tools ones. Every morning I look through the homepage to try and find the coolest products to write about and I want to share with you all what I look in a launch so you can increase your chances of getting featured!
Uniqueness: It doesn't need to be a never before seen world-changing product. It just needs to do something unique. I'm not going to write about yet another social media scheduler unless it flips the script a little and does something interesting compared to the rest.
A good gallery: I can't stress this enough, without some solid images showcasing your product, there's a high chance I will skim past it. It doesn't need to be mind-blowing top tier design skills, just avoid blurry images and avoid screenshots that are illegible. A ton of tools like @Xnapper make it super easy to take beautiful gallery shots in seconds.
A good description: The description is the first place I look to get an understanding of what a product is and does before I try it out. It helps me develop an angle to cover the product in. Without it, there's a high chance I'll only put it in the "maybe" pile.
Maker comment: A maker comment is your chance to expand further beyond the description character limit, talk about yourself, your story, how you came up with the product, any struggles / wins along the way, and what the future holds.
Tell me: Of course, sometimes I miss a product or two that deserved to be covered. I'm only human and I see a lot of products. That's why I tell everyone that if they think their product deserves the spotlight, send me your pitch to editorial@producthunt.co
I'm hoping this helps any maker aspiring to be featured in one of our newsletters! Also feel free to pitch me your products in the comments!
Replies
minimalist phone: creating folders
Discussions/announcements in Forums like these help us to better understand the functioning of the platform!
Thank you for making the process transparent to us! :)
Atlas
awesome! when is the deadline? we're launching next week. how many days/hours do you need before you won't take anymore new submissions? Thanks!
Product Hunt
@laura_cruickshanks No real deadline, I want to make it as easy as possible. the newsletter goes out at 7am PT so if you say wanted it in today make sure to pitch me prior to that time, but also you can pitch me after the launch too and I could include it in another days editions
Atlas
@aaronoleary Thanks! gonna have @michaelthoy send you something soon for our June 11th launch!!! 😇
Raycast
Can you breakdown the current subscriber counts for each newsletter?
These criteria closely resemble those outlined by @gabe for assessing a product to get featured. During the launch of @PayScope , I aimed to consider all of them, however, I believe the Gallery was the area that did not meet expectations. Next time, I will take that more seriously.
Thank you for the clarification.
Product Hunt
@gabe @michael_vavilov Can't stress enough how important the gallery is! It's the first time users will get to see visuals of your product, definitely recommend making some effort towards it
Product Hunt
I've sent you my pitch!
Product Hunt
@floris_meulensteen oops i made a mistake in the forum post! send it to editorial@producthunt.co
@aaronoleary I just did. Did you get it? :)
Product Hunt
@floris_meulensteen I did!
We'll soon send you our pitch for Lifetoon too, woho! 🤩 Thank you for the transparency and the cool opportunity ☀️
Also, wow, what a cool job! You've probably seen looots of products that kept on growing, and many that flopped. What's the main thing you'd advise an early-stage founder to do to ensure steady growth after the product's launch on Product Hunt, based on all the stories you've covered?
Product Hunt
@ruxandra_mazilu That's a tough question. Honestly, keep building. Especially when it comes to being an indie maker, just keep building, keep shipping, keep improving the product and do it in public. Most of the coolest indie products I see that fail, fail because the maker loses interest in it post launch (I've done this myself)
I'm a newbie, and I'm glad to learn about the process.😸 I hope there's a chance that the product will be featured in the newsletter afterward.
Product Hunt
@partick_support What are you launching?
@aaronoleary Still in the preparation stage, it is a smart tool that converts flowchart images into editable digital formats.😺
Saner.AI
Thanks for sharing these criteria @aaronoleary , really transparent
super helpful...I am already struggling a bit in understanding PH fully as a new user, so this transparency is really useful. Forum threads is another area where a more detailed, transparent post with very clear examples would help
Product Hunt
@manu_goel2 If you have any other questions about PH let me know!
@aaronoleary I believe it's an exploration. What might help is if a bit more explanation is given on what specifically was found unsuitable in a forum thread while rejecting it...maybe have categories to say whether it was the topic or language or something else. But I believe with so many threads coming in for review it would be impractical.
Dear Sir Aaron, Guardian of the Newsletter Realm,
Do I have something important to show you?
Absolutely not.
Do I have something ✨unreasonably chaotic✨, deeply unnecessary, and possibly the first password generator to combine cybersecurity with emotional delusion?
Yes. And her name is Pass Snap.
it throws confetti.
it pretends you’re copying UnbotheredRizzlord456💀
but actually pastes X4&gz!tLp*12B@k9v$zq
no tracking. no autofill. just ✨entropy + delulu-coded security✨
would love if it made it into the newsletter.
or at least gave someone a nervous giggle 😌
@aaronoleary I've sent my pitch about https://www.producthunt.com/products/capitally as well, hope you will consider it as we've launched today and got tons of comments from our existing users.
I'd love to see some new faces there as well, and a feature would definitely help with that 😅
Product Hunt
@staminapl Got it!
Sending you my pitch! I am launching next week on Product Hunt :) https://www.producthunt.com/products/interactively
Product Hunt
@jennifer_interactively This looks fun!!
Querri
Hey, I think your newsletter would be really helpful to me.
Could you share a link to subscribe
Hi Aaron, thanks so much for the transparency on what it takes to get featured! I've recently built Lorelight, an AI brand intelligence platform which I'm really passionate about: https://www.producthunt.com/products/lorelight
I'm about to launch on Wednesday and just sent you my pitch, I hope you received it. :)
Get Website.Report
Thanks for keeping it transparent!
This is cool!
I just launch my MVP lambryl.com, https://www.producthunt.com/products/lambryl.
A customizable, collaborative no-code, low effort AI platform for building, branching, and merging multi MCP agent & its workflows. Unlike most tools made for engineers, this is designed for creators who vibe with code.
Im not sure if i have a satisfactory gallery. Would appreciate any form of feedback or thoughts.
Thank you!
SlashPage
So you're the one who writes ProductHunt's cool newsletter! I'm enjoying your newsletter!
Your tips for getting featured in the newsletter are really helpful! I've found that it drives quite a bit of user acquisition, so I think it's good for other makers to take note of them.