Quick plan
Days -30 to -21: pick a niche, show up in its community, start a waitlist. Days -21 to -14: landing page with value, weekly email. Days -14 to -7: content sprint, influencer outreach. Days -7 to 0: launch prep. Day 0: Product Hunt + email + social. Days +1 to +7: reply to everything, iterate fast.
Days -30 to -21: audience
You need a place where your target user already hangs out. Find one, join it, contribute value for 10+ days before mentioning your app. Subreddits, niche Discord servers, LinkedIn groups, Twitter communities — pick one or two.
- Day -30: identify 2 communities, join as a regular user.
- Day -28: post a short intro, answer someone’s question.
- Day -25 to -22: daily value-add — reply thoughtfully, post helpful links.
- Day -21: share a behind-the-scenes post about what you’re building (not a pitch).
Days -21 to -14: landing page and waitlist
A landing page does three jobs: promise value, demo the product, capture the email. Keep it simple.
- Hero: one-line benefit (not feature). Short subheadline. Waitlist email input.
- Gallery or demo video: 30–60 second walkthrough. Screen recording beats explainer animation.
- Social proof: even 3 early-access testimonials help. Use real people with photos.
- Press badges: “Coming to Product Hunt” counts.
- Data capture: email + one free-text field (“What are you using today?”). The free-text answers become your research gold.
Send the first waitlist email on Day -14 — explain what you’re building and invite replies. Reply to everyone.
Days -14 to -7: content sprint and influencer outreach
Push 2 pieces of content per week on your main channel. Content format by audience:
- B2B / SaaS: LinkedIn post + 1 blog post weekly.
- Consumer / creator: TikTok or Instagram Reels, 3–5 posts weekly.
- Developer: Twitter threads + 1 dev.to or blog post weekly.
- All: behind-the-scenes build-in-public posts, ship progress updates.
For influencer outreach: identify 10 micro-creators (5–50k followers) in your niche. Send a genuine personal message — product context, a free account, no ask yet. Follow up once, then let them decide.
Days -7 to 0: launch prep
- Day -7: second waitlist email — early-access invites to the engaged 20%. Let them try the app before Product Hunt.
- Day -6: ship any remaining bugs. Freeze features.
- Day -5: draft the Product Hunt listing — tagline, gallery, first comment. See our Product Hunt playbook.
- Day -4: write the launch-day email, Twitter thread, LinkedIn post. Schedule but do not send yet.
- Day -3: App Store and Play Store submissions live (if not already).
- Day -2: tell the communities you contributed to. “Quick heads up, launching X on Tuesday. No upvote ask — just wanted y’all to see it first.”
- Day -1: sleep early. Final asset checks. Run the PH listing through a friend.
Day 0: launch
Post to Product Hunt at 12:01 AM Pacific. Send the launch email 15 minutes after. Post the Twitter / LinkedIn threads 15 minutes after that. Reply to every comment for the first 12 hours. Ship a bug fix if something breaks. Your full tactical playbook is in the Product Hunt launch guide.
Days +1 to +7: the week most founders waste
- Reply to every new user email, review, and comment personally for 7 days.
- Ship a small improvement every day based on real user feedback.
- Post a recap (“launch week in numbers”) on Day +7 with real metrics. This post usually outperforms your original launch post.
- Keep showing up in the communities that helped you launch.
- Start logging ASO data so you can iterate your store page. See ASO for Indie Founders.
Common pre-launch mistakes
- Launching without a waitlist for a consumer product.
- Spamming communities without contributing first.
- Spending on paid ads pre-launch.
- Targeting too broad a niche (“everyone”).
- Building features during launch week instead of responding to users.