Howdy - Send cold DMs that feel warm
Howdy helps creators and marketers send personalized Instagram DMs. Send smarter messages and save hours each week.
Reach thousands of leads with uniquely targeted messages on Instagram while protecting the integrity of your Instagram accounts.
Reach thousands of leads with uniquely targeted messages on Instagram while protecting the integrity of your Instagram accounts.
Replies
Interesting tools (especially in times when most people switched their attention from feed to DMs). Do you already have any notable milestones you'd like to share? :)
Howdy
@busmark_w_nika Yes! Happy to hear you noticed that shift too. One huge milestone we’re proud of is that users have seen over 470% more replies with Howdy compared to their usual cold outreach 🤩
@ngorgiashvili That's cool! I reckon that numbers will go beyond thousands % after this PH launch! Wish you GL!
Howdy
@busmark_w_nika Appreciate that 🙌 We hope this launch helps more and more people see what great DMs can actually do.
Howdy
Hey Product Hunt 👋 I’m Brandon, the founder of Howdy.
Howdy is an AI tool that helps you reach thousands of qualified leads with messages that feel personal like you checked every profile yourself.
📩 Back in early 2019, I was helping celebrities like Dennis Rodman monetize their digital presence. DMs were the simplest way to spark collaborations and sell merchandise. When the pandemic hit, my team and I started building products to help builders grow through DMs.
😩 I still remember spending 3–4 hours a day messaging 80 people on Instagram, checking each profile, and carefully crafting the first message.
💬 People kept asking, “What’s the secret to a great opening message?” We thought about it a lot — and realized the real challenge was the cold DM itself. You can’t say the same thing to thousands of people and expect it to feel personal.
✨ That’s why we built Howdy, to scale personalized messages on Instagram and make cold DMs feel warmer.
📈Since launching, we’ve seen over 470% growth in responses that lead to actual conversations. Because with Howdy, it all starts with the right first message and leads to a real reply.
How Does Howdy Work?
Howdy reads profiles like a human. It looks at bios, posts, and engagement to write DMs people actually want to reply to. You can:
Create contact lists from Instagram posts, hashtags, or followers
Turn contacts into qualified leads with a single prompt
Let Howdy AI write messages that feel personal
Start real conversations that actually get responses
Track performance and double down on what works
Who It's For?
Whether you're launching a product, growing an audience, or closing deals, Howdy helps you start real conversations faster. Perfect for:
Vibe coders and indie hackers focused on testing new concepts and messaging
Founders and Solopreneurs reaching out to users, investors, or early supporters
Marketers scaling outreach and getting replies that convert
Coaches and Freelancers finding clients and keeping relationships warm
Creators and Influencers connecting with fans, brands, and partners
🎁 For Product Hunters
Join from Product Hunt and we’ll double your free credits - up to 300 DMs to try it out.
👉 sayhowdy.co/?ref=producthunt
@brandonshtein Like how you say "Howdy reads profiles like a human"! This solves half the problem. How about after posting the first DM and getting a reply. What is the flow, especially when humans work in different time zones?
Howdy
@brandonshtein
Congrats on the launch ! I’ve been curious about how tools like this decide what makes a DM feel personal.
Just wondering: when Howdy reads profiles, what kind of info does it lean on the most — bios, recent posts, comments? Would love to hear what’s worked best in making cold messages feel warm.
Something about this says you've got a hell of a taste.
Howdy
@neelptl2602 Appreciate that ✨
Shoutout to @erolmujak - his design instinct is on the next level 👏
Howdy
@neelptl2602 Thank you, I appreciate it! It's a team effort 😊
Just gave Howdy a spin and wow; this is exactly the kind of tool I wish I had back when I was manually sending cold DMs one-by-one. The messages feel surprisingly personal, and I love that it pulls context from bios and posts so it doesn’t come off like a spray-and-pray tool. Already seeing stronger response rates than what I got using generic outreach tools.
Super curious:
1) How do you see this evolving for platforms beyond Instagram?
2) Any favorite campaign examples from early users you can share?
Congrats on the launch, Brandon & team- this is one of those “why didn’t this exist sooner?” tools 👏
Howdy
@oren_kozlowski1 thanks for the support on the launch! We've been seeing a lot of initial users sign up and howdy for their influencer outreach.
I have to give the 🏆 to this life insurance user who just signed up 8 hours ago and sent over 370 messages, and is already messaging me about how he's getting more conversations going today than he did the whole month of June!
I think the beauty of the product is you don't need to be a expert get use from it and you don't even need a massive following. Takes what is normally 5-7 days of work and packs into one tool that gets it done for you in less than 10 mins.
Excited to keep seeing founders/indiehackers/vibe coders/marketers etc continue to find their community on instagram. Easiest way to get to 1000 true fans.
todai
Like your "wording on the contrast", so neat.
Automatic contact extraction is a core feature here as I think.
What about contact policy? Might there be any consequences for sending too much DMs within Instagram policy?
Howdy
@goshatirov You're spot on! And yes our profile matcher does the magic 🪄. It filters the right audience who are actually open to DMs, so you’re not spamming people. We stay in line with Instagram’s policy and within their limits, which keeps things safe.
Also, our users have seen that super personalized messages get the most replies, it’s what really makes the difference.
Does this integrate with any project management/CRM tools out of the box?
Howdy
@jeremylitwicki great question! We have plans to integrate with CRMs, but we intentionally decided to delay this for our next update to better understand which CRM our customers use.
You can sign up for notifications in the settings/integration profile. Please let me know which CRM you use so that I can keep it in mind for our customer priority list.
@brandonshtein I currently use ClickUp so that would be best - thanks for the reply
Howdy
@dan_berenholtz1, thank you for supporting our launch. Now, collecting is entirely separate from running your campaign. You can build your list of accounting creators across multiple posts, hashtags, and follower lists.
Once you are done preparing your list, we do the filtering down for you so, since you might be looking for creators with over 1K followers who spoke about accounting or finance and generates on average a certain amount of engagement around the last few posts.
We will then narrow down your list to only leads that match those criteria and have a message curated to their persona and what they post about.
Let me know if that helps.
Howdy
@dan_berenholtz1 we optimize for simplicity and impact, while always listening to our users' feedback. Thank you always trusting us :)
BestPage.ai
It really matters when sending DMs or cold emails!! General AI does not perform smart enough on this case.. Hope Howdy does!!
Howdy
@joey_zhu1 Context matters when sending messages - so the more personalized your message is, the higher the likelihood of getting a response.
Let me know if there's any way we can help support your growth with BestPage.AI
BestPage.ai
Howdy
@joey_zhu1 Cold email is a great playbook - I think it's clarifying who exactly is your ICP, then finding out how to message them.
I've been getting a lot of X outreach, but it's all the identical copy and paste. Remember, your customers are humans too, so you want to start conversations and not just go for the sale.
Clueso
This is super cool, @brandonshtein ! Congrats on the launch!
Howdy
@neel_balar thanks for the support! Is @Clueso mainly focused on product/feature announcements? How are you retaining them past that initial pain point?
WeDo
How would you be able to use this to reach out to PMs?
Howdy
@spshulem, an easy way to navigate to product-related posts is by searching for a hashtag on Instagram, such as #PRD, etc. You won't get the same volume as someone posting #TBT, but that's not the point.
Collect everyone who has posted with that hashtag using howdy + everyone who engaged with those posts that way, and you can start building your list. Now, the filtering and profile matching occur at the campaign level, which is where you can be as specific as you wish, considering we will be pairing you with your target lead.
At that point you'll likely be narrowing down a list of 600 to 50 or 60 and our magic dm will curate a personalized messages based on your prompt and their profile. Let me know how it goes!
Thanks for supporting the launch and h/t to @chrismessina for inventing the hashtag so we can do what we do :)
Congrats on the launch! Howdy is a total win for creators and marketers. Personalized DMs at scale without getting flagged? That’s the dream.
Howdy
Congratulations on the launch of Howdy! It’s impressive to see a tool designed to enhance personalized outreach on Instagram. How does Howdy ensure that messages remain authentic and engaging while allowing users to scale their outreach effectively?
Howdy
@ifah_kholifah Thanks so much! 🙌
Howdy keeps messages authentic by analyzing each profile’s bio, posts, and engagement. Then uses that context to generate super personalized messages, instead of sending the same thing to thousands of people.
This looks like a great tool for saving time and making outreach feel more personal. Love that it focuses on smart messaging while keeping Instagram accounts safe. Well done!
Howdy
@sardul_bhattarai Thanks so much for supporting the launch! 🚀 We're on a mission to make cold outreach personal and engaging.
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All the best for the launch @brandonshtein & team!
Howdy
@parekh_tanmay Thank you 🤩
Amazing product. Can my team use it or has to be a single user ?
Howdy
Howdy
Congratulations on the launch! :) This looks pretty solid. Does it analyze their latest Instagram posts to create the custom message?
Howdy
@charvia Appreciate your support 😇 Yes! Howdy analyzes their latest posts, also captions and bio to write a super personal message for that account.
The main problem with AI-written cold emails is that... they feel AI-ish. How does your product avoid this?
Howdy
@ernest_gonet, great question. The unique thing about social media is the context you get about the individual prior to sending the message. We use a combination of profile analysis and curation to ensure messages sound authentic to the recipient.
With our product, we are focused on getting the first response. We try to keep the message short while also including a simple ask or question.
The key to a successful campaign is sending a right message to the most relevant recipient.
Hi! I really liked your landing page.
Q: Do your platform work for creating campaigns in Spanish?
Howdy
@roverdrammen Hi! We love our landing page too 💜
Right now, Howdy supports campaigns in English only, but we’re actively considering adding more languages.
Are you planning to send DMs fully in Spanish? Or would you also need to run some campaigns in English?
I’ve actually gotten to test this app and I must say I was blown away. Genuinely impressed! The targeting is sharp, the interface is smooth, and the time it saves is is definitely needed and helpful. Cold DMs that actually feel personal will make Howdy my go to for sure. Big respect to the team for building something this thoughtful and effective.
Howdy
@chris_reeder Hi, we’ve worked hard to make it simple and useful, so happy it’s helping 😇 Thanks for being part of it!