The Launch Week Kit

Launches are a spike, not a strategy (run one anyway)

Let's kill the fantasy first. A launch does not make a product. Traffic spikes for 48-72 hours, drops 90%+ by day four, and the #1 Product of the Day badge has never paid anyone's rent. If your growth plan is "launch big," you don't have a growth plan.

Here's why you run one anyway: a good spike compounds and a skipped one doesn't. One well-executed week buys you things that keep paying after the traffic is gone.

One more reframe before the schedule. The 2026 platforms all converged on the same rule: conversation quality beats vote counts. PH's algorithm weighs comment depth and maker responsiveness over raw upvotes, X weighs a reply at roughly 13.5x a like, HN kills anything that smells like a voting ring, and Reddit mods filter LLM-flavored posts on sight. The launch week below is designed around that: your job all week is to be present and answer things, not to mobilize upvotes.

The week: D-3 to D+3, one platform per day

The plan assumes D0 is a Tuesday. Tue-Thu is max-traffic season on PH; if you'd rather farm the #1 badge for the screenshot, launch Fri-Sun when competition is thin (real tradeoff, lower ceiling). PH and HN get separate days on purpose: each one demands full-day maker presence and splitting yourself halves both.

D-3 (Saturday): assets and warm-up

1. 1

   Freeze the product and cut the demo

   No new features from here to D0, bug fixes only. Record a 30-60 second screen capture of the product doing its core thing. No intro slide, no logo animation, straight into the money shot.

2. 2

   Draft the full PH page

   Name, tagline (plain words, no adjectives you can't cash), description (500-char limit as of 2026), 4-6 gallery images at 1270x760 with the product-in-action shot first, and the maker first comment from the templates section. The first comment is the highest-leverage asset on the page: 60-80% of voters read it.

3. 3

   Send the waitlist warm email

   Template below. It does three jobs: announces the date, delivers the early-bird promise, and asks for the #1 missing feature (launch week is when you ship fast and publicly). Ask for feedback and comments on launch day. Not upvotes.

4. 4

   Build and verify tracked links

   Every channel gets its own UTM per the scheme below. Click each link and confirm the UTM values land on the signup record, not just in pageview analytics. If you only fix one tracking thing this week, fix this one.

D-2 (Sunday): write the copy by hand

1. 1

   Write the X thread and Show HN yourself

   Use the skeletons below for structure, but type the sentences. As of 2026, HN commenters flag LLM-cadence prose and Reddit builder-sub mods run filters for it. Your agent can build the product; it cannot write your launch posts.

2. 2

   Verify the HN demo path

   Show HN rule: people must be able to run or try the thing, and signup/email gates are explicitly discouraged. A stranger should reach the core experience in under 60 seconds with zero forms. If they can't, today is the day you fix that.

3. 3

   Set up the PH launch, self-hunted

   Schedule for 12:01 AM Pacific (full 24-hour vote window). Self-hunt from your personal account, aged 30+ days with a complete profile; PH's own guidance says a third-party hunter adds no discernible advantage as of 2026, and fresh accounts get filtered.

4. 4

   Line up real humans, correctly

   Message 5-10 people who actually use or care about the product: "launching Tuesday, would love your honest take in the comments." Comments from established accounts with real substance are what the algorithm weighs. 40 thoughtful comments can outrank 800 upvotes with generic replies.

D-1 (Monday): dry run

1. 1

   Click everything

   Every link with its UTM, the signup flow, the payment flow, all of it on mobile too. Launch day traffic finds the broken path you didn't test. It always does.

2. 2

   Load the battle station

   Canned replies (pricing, roadmap, "how is this different from X", bug triage) one keystroke away; templates in the download. Clear your calendar for D0 and D+1 entirely. Launch day is a customer support shift, plan it like one.

3. 3

   Schedule the launch email and pick a sleep plan

   12:01 AM PT is 3:01 AM in New York and 9:01 AM in Berlin. The first 6 hours set your initial ranking, so decide now which of them you'll be awake for. EU founders have it easy here; US East Coast founders should sleep early and take the 4 AM shift.

D0 (Tuesday): Product Hunt day

1. 1

   12:01 AM PT: live, first comment posted

   The maker comment goes up within minutes of the listing. End it with a question to the community; comment threads compound in the ranking.

2. 2

   Morning: email the waitlist, post the X thread

   Launch email at your list's morning. X thread mid-morning US Eastern: hook tweet with no link (a URL in the main tweet costs roughly 30-50% of reach as of early 2026), link in your own first reply, then answer every reply for at least an hour.

3. 3

   All day: 15-30 minute reply SLA on PH

   Maker responsiveness and comment depth are ranking inputs now. Working targets: 200+ upvotes and 30+ comments by 6 AM PT if you're gunning for top 5. Miss the targets and keep engaging anyway; the page, the backlink, and the users are the durable part.

4. 4

   Do not touch HN today

   Tomorrow. One platform per day is the whole trick of this schedule.

D+1 (Wednesday): Show HN day

1. 1

   Post 8-11 AM US Eastern

   Title: "Show HN: [Name] - [plain technical description]". Zero marketing adjectives, they actively hurt here. Submission URL stays clean, no UTM (HN's dupe detection keys off the URL and readers notice tracking junk). Measure HN by referrer instead.

2. 2

   Maker comment immediately, then 4+ hours of presence

   Why you built it, how it works, one real tradeoff, known limitations. The limitations line is not humility theater, it's what HN upvotes. Answer every substantive question. First ~30 minutes of organic votes from /new decide front-page odds, and there's nothing you can legitimately do about that except be interesting and be present.

3. 3

   Post the D0 receipts on X

   A short results tweet with real numbers (rank, signups, best comment). Build-in-public texture converts profile visitors, and the people who missed the launch thread see this one.

4. 4

   Fix the top 3 things from launch day

   Ship the small ones today and reply publicly where they were reported. A same-day public fix is the single best marketing move of the week.

D+2 (Thursday): Reddit day

1. 1

   Post the story, not the announcement

   Format that survives moderation everywhere: "what I learned shipping X" with the product named in context and real numbers including the bad ones. Link-first launch announcements get removed. Post Tue-Thu, 8-11 AM ET for r/SideProject.

2. 2

   Check sidebar rules the same day, per sub

   The table below is current as of July 2026 but these change; the sidebar is the source of truth on the day you post.

3. 3

   Respect the 10% rule account-wide

   At most 1 in 10 of your posts/comments should link your own stuff, across your whole account history. Mods check.

D+3 (Friday): close the loop

1. 1

   Send the follow-up email

   Real numbers including a flop, what you shipped from feedback, one CTA. Template below. This email converts better than the launch email for most products because trust just went up.

2. 2

   Run the UTM check and write down the winner

   The 5-line query in the UTM section. Signups per channel, not traffic. This number decides where your next 6 weeks of effort go.

3. 3

   20-minute retro, then book the follow-through

   What worked, what flopped, what you'd cut. Then put the 6-week content follow-through (in the flop section below, but it applies to wins too) into your calendar before the launch adrenaline wears off.

The templates: fill the slots, then make it sound like you

Four templates below plus four more (both emails' siblings, the Reddit post shape, canned replies) in the download. Every one has [SLOTS]. The deal you're making with me: after filling the slots, you edit until it reads like you typed it at 11 PM, because on every 2026 platform, obviously-generated launch copy performs somewhere between poorly and account-endingly.

Hey Product Hunt, I'm [NAME]. I built [PRODUCT].

The short version: [ONE SENTENCE, PLAIN WORDS, WHAT IT DOES FOR WHOM].

Why I built it: [2-3 SENTENCES ON THE SPECIFIC PAIN. USE A NUMBER: "I was spending 4 hours a week doing X by hand" beats "X was frustrating".]

What it does today:
- [OUTCOME 1, NOT FEATURE NAME]
- [OUTCOME 2]
- [OUTCOME 3]

What it doesn't do yet: [1-2 HONEST GAPS. THIS LINE BUYS MORE TRUST THAN THE FEATURE LIST ABOVE IT.]

How it's built: [STACK IN ONE SENTENCE. PH READERS GENUINELY LIKE THIS.]

For launch day: [REAL OFFER IF ANY, e.g. "50% off the first year for the first 100 signups, code HUNT". Skip the line rather than fake it. Never tie an offer to upvoting.]

I'll be here all day. To start us off: [SPECIFIC QUESTION TO THE COMMUNITY, e.g. "what's the most annoying part of [PROBLEM AREA] for you right now?"]

TWEET 1 (the hook, pick ONE pattern, NO LINK):

  NUMBER: "[TIMEFRAME] ago I started building [PRODUCT] [CONTEXT: nights/weekends, with AI agents]. Today it's live. [ONE REAL NUMBER: waitlist size, revenue, hours saved]."

  PAIN: "[SPECIFIC TASK] used to take me [TIME/COST]. I got annoyed enough to build a tool. As of today anyone can use it."

  STORY: "[N] weeks ago [INCITING INCIDENT: the bill, the bug, the spreadsheet from hell]. Today I'm launching what came out of it."

TWEET 2: The problem as one concrete scene. Real numbers, real tool names. No abstractions.

TWEET 3: How it works, part 1. [SCREENSHOT of the core flow]

TWEET 4: How it works, part 2. [30-60s DEMO VIDEO]

TWEET 5: The receipt. What it cost, how long, what stack, what broke. This tweet is why strangers trust tweet 1.

TWEET 6: What's next + the ask. "Live on Product Hunt today. Link in the next tweet. If you try it, tell me what's broken."

FIRST REPLY (yours, immediately): [PRODUCT LINK with UTM] + [PH LINK]

THEN: answer every reply for the first hour minimum. A reply weighs roughly 13.5x a like; a real back-and-forth roughly 150x.

TITLE:
Show HN: [PRODUCT NAME] - [WHAT IT IS, PLAIN AND TECHNICAL, NO ADJECTIVES]

  Good:  "Show HN: Rowfill - CSV import API that fixes malformed files"
  Bad:   "Show HN: Rowfill - The blazing-fast way to supercharge imports"

URL: your product URL, canonical, NO UTM parameters. Measure HN by referrer.

FIRST COMMENT (within minutes of submitting):

Hi HN, I built [PRODUCT], a [WHAT] for [WHO].

I built this because [SPECIFIC REASON: the technical itch, the job pain, the tool that didn't exist. One short paragraph, first person, concrete].

How it works: [2-4 SENTENCES, TECHNICAL. NAME THE STACK, THE INTERESTING DESIGN DECISION, AND ONE TRADEOFF YOU MADE AND WHY.]

Known limitations: [2-3 HONEST ONES. HN REWARDS THIS AND PUNISHES GLOSS.]

You can try it without signing up at [URL].

Happy to answer anything, especially about [THE TECHNICAL PART YOU MOST WANT TO DISCUSS].

Subject: [PRODUCT] is live

It's live: [PRODUCT LINK with UTM]

[ONE SENTENCE: WHAT IT DOES.] [ONE SENTENCE: THE EARLY-USER OFFER AND ITS REAL DEADLINE, IF ANY.]

We're also on Product Hunt today: [PH LINK]. If you have 2 minutes, try the product and leave a comment with your honest take. I'm answering everything there all day.

That's it. Short on purpose. Go break it and tell me what happened.

[NAME]

The waitlist page prompt: one paste, one page

You need this page live weeks before D-3, so it's the first thing in the kit you should actually use. One prompt, your stack, and the four things a converting waitlist page needs: a hook that states the outcome, proof that you're real, exactly one CTA, and a referral hook so the list grows itself. It also bakes in the UTM capture from the next section, so your launch analytics work on day one.

Build a single waitlist landing page for my product in my existing stack.

PRODUCT: [PRODUCT NAME], a [ONE-SENTENCE DESCRIPTION] for [SPECIFIC AUDIENCE].
STACK: [e.g. Next.js 15 + Tailwind + Postgres via Drizzle, or plain HTML + a Cloudflare Worker. If this is an existing repo, follow its conventions and reuse its UI primitives.]
LAUNCH TIMEFRAME: [e.g. "August 2026"]
PROOF I CAN SHOW: [PICK WHAT'S TRUE: demo GIF/video at PATH, screenshot at PATH, "built by [NAME], who [ONE CREDIBILITY FACT]", current waitlist count, a real user quote]

PAGE STRUCTURE, in this exact order, nothing else:
1. HOOK: one headline stating the outcome for the user (max 10 words, no product name required, no hype adjectives), plus one subline saying what it is and who it's for.
2. PROOF: render the proof asset(s) I listed above. If I listed a demo, it goes here, autoplaying muted GIF/video, max 30s.
3. SINGLE CTA: one email field + one button ("[CTA VERB, e.g. Get early access]"). No nav, no footer links, no second CTA, no social icons. The page has exactly one thing to do.
4. REFERRAL HOOK: after successful signup, swap the form for a personal referral link (format: [BASE_URL]/?ref=SHORTCODE) with copy like "You're #N on the list. Skip ahead: each signup from your link moves you up." Store referral credit server-side.

BEHAVIOR REQUIREMENTS:
- Signup endpoint: validate email server-side, dedupe, store {email, created_at, position, ref_by, utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign, first_referrer}.
- UTM capture: on first page load, persist utm_source/utm_medium/utm_campaign and document.referrer (first-touch, never overwrite) and submit them with the form.
- The ?ref= param credits the referrer (increment their referral count, move them up in position) and is stored as ref_by for the new signup.
- Waitlist position N = signup order minus 5 per referral, floor 1. Show it on the success state.
- Anti-junk: honeypot field + rate limit by IP. No captcha.

COPY RULES (write real copy, not lorem):
- Builder voice: short sentences, concrete nouns, zero marketing adjectives ("revolutionary", "seamless", "supercharge" are banned). Numbers where I gave you numbers.
- No em-dashes, no emojis, no exclamation marks.
- Under 120 words of copy on the entire page.

DESIGN RULES: mobile-first, system or single webfont, one accent color [HEX OR "pick one"], fast (no framework bloat beyond the stack above, Lighthouse 95+), dark-mode friendly.

OUTPUT: the complete page + signup endpoint + schema/migration for the waitlist table, ready to run. Then a 5-line README section: how to deploy it and how to export the email list as CSV. Do not add features I didn't list.

The UTM scheme: know which channel actually worked

Everyone tracks launch traffic. Almost nobody can answer "which channel produced paying users" a week later, because they measured pageviews instead of signups. The fix is one table and five lines of SQL.

Two rules make the table work. Capture at signup, not pageview: persist first-touch UTMs in localStorage on landing, write them to the user record on signup (the waitlist prompt above already does this). HN gets no UTM: the submission URL should be canonical for dupe detection, and HN readers side-eye tracking parameters; count HN via document.referrer instead.

SELECT COALESCE(utm_source, split_part(first_referrer, '/', 3), 'direct') AS channel,
       COUNT(*) AS signups
FROM users
WHERE created_at >= '2026-07-11' AND created_at < '2026-07-18'
GROUP BY 1
ORDER BY signups DESC;

Run it on D+3 with your own D-3 to D+3 dates. On Plausible or GA4 instead: filter to your campaign, break down by source, and read the conversion event count, never sessions. Typical surprise: HN sends 10x the visitors of your email list and a third of the signups. Whatever your version of that surprise is, it decides where the next 6 weeks of effort go.

When the launch flops (statistically: probably)

Calibrate expectations first: as of 2026 only about 10% of PH launches get Featured on the homepage, down from 60-98% in the 2020-2023 era, and Featured status drives roughly 70% of the traffic outcome. A quiet launch day puts you in the majority, not the failures. Here's what to actually do with it.

Downloads: the checklist, the templates, the UTM scheme

Three files, everything above in grab-and-go form. The checklist is the one to actually pin somewhere for the week.