I first became aware of ProductHunt in 2020, but never really paid much attention to it. When I interviewed Steven Tey for the NamePros Blog in 2020, Meet Steven Tey, The Young Developer of One Word Domains, he mentioned that One Word Domains was featured on Product Hunt. Since then Steven has launched other products, most notably Dub, on Product Hunt.
Very recently, @Michael Cyger announced the launch of Pyramid Solitaire at Product Hunt. By the way, the domain name for Pyramid Solitaire is the stellar pyramid.com.
@Michael Cyger mentioned that following Product Hunt might provide useful information for domain investors. In this article I look at the ways domain name investors might benefit from Product Hunt. At the end, I briefly touch on Product Hunt alternatives.
@LeanneMac of CrunchID followed up on Mike’s idea and has shared on X a couple of lists of the domain names being used by products recently launching at Product Hunt on a single day. I am not sure if she plans to continue this on a regular basis.
What Is Product Hunt?
Product Hunt is a site for listing new tech products and services. Every product listed has a short summary, sometimes a video or screen shots, and basic categorization data. It also has a link to the website for the product.
The community upvote products, as well as provide reviews and comments.
It is free to join Product Hunt and free to launch on the site, although paid promotion packages and ad campaigns are available. I believe Product Hunt also makes some money from events.
Many product launches are by a solo developer, while others are from the largest global companies. For example, the new M4 iPad Pro from Apple was a product on Product Hunt the day I was finishing this article.
Product Hunt, as the name implies, is for launches of products, not businesses. Some companies have a single product, but most will at different times launch different products.
Product Hunt started late in 2013, but has become much better known the last few years.
Let’s look at ways that a domain investor might use Product Hunt.
See What Developers Are Launching
Probably the most obvious use is to get an idea of what new services and products are launching, since that helps inform what niches are hot. You can readily search on any date to see the top launches for that day
For example, for May 8, 2024, there were 15 launches, but 3 of these were Apple related (new iPad Pro, new iPad Air and Apple Pencil Pro).
The launched products for May 8 included products in AI workflow, social media, audience software, AI agent, sketch, Ai data analytics, storytelling, feedback, screenshot software, productivity, SaaS, and translation. It is hard to determine clearly in some cases, but just over half involved AI in some direct way.
You can readily search over longer time periods, or even over all time. There is also a tab for products that are about to launch.
What Names and Domain Names Are Being Used
it is also valuable for domain name investors to get a sense of names being chosen for new products. Here are examples of some of the names from that day: Ringly, DataLab, SocialBee, Abstra Workflow, BeeBetter, Diseed, Launch Brightly, and Voice Cheap.
This look at a single day is certainly not a significant statistical sample, but, excluding the Apple products, 9 of the 12 used a domain name that is an exact match to their product name. One of the products just gave an App Store link. It is a tiny sample, but was interesting that two used the term ‘bee’ and several were involved with business workflow.
In terms of domain names, for that one day 5 used .com, 4 used .io, and 1 each for .fr and .social.
List Your Product or Service
Some NamePros members are also developers, and Product Hunt provides a free platform to get early interest for your product or service, along with your first few customers.
If you are planning to list a product, be sure to check the guide How to Post a Product on Product Hunt. Also note that they have strict policies with regard to manipulation, or even active encouragement, of upvotes.
There is also a visual Product Hunt Launch Guide. The guide has case studies of some famous products like Notion that used Product Hunt early in development.
It seems common to do your Product Hunt launch after you have quietly launched and worked out any early bugs.
Research A Term
In the recent NamePros article How To Rate and Price a Domain Name two of the metrics that I covered were the number of active OpenCorporates listings and the number of CrunchBase listings on the term.
I had hoped that Product Hunt might provide a third metric, one that is particularly sensitive to early-stage, recent startups. While you can search a term and see a list (be sure to click the arrow icon to expand the list), it did not seem narrow enough to me to readily provide a single metric. However, it is one place to search when assessing the business case for a potential domain name acquisition.
Find A Product Or Service
Domain investors can also use Product Hunt to find products or services of interest to them. One of the launches this week was AI Illustration Generator. It is an inexpensive service to generate illustrations with a common look and feel for a website or product guide, using AI prompts. I can see a use personally for this, and have made note for possible future use.
Some domain investors use Carrd to easily generate visually beautiful one page websites, perhaps as a. domain lander. It’s free for a few sites, and has various paid levels with different numbers of domains and different features. Carrd launched on Product Hunt, and was actually the Product Hunt #3 product for 2016 launched products.
I did not realize Carrd had been around this long, and another advantage of browsing Product Hunt is you will learn of products before most people know about them.
Find Domain Services
Product Hunt might be a helpful way to find domain name services, such as AI tools for domain investors, niche marketplaces, etc. Of course NamePros is probably much more efficient for this purpose.
I searched for the term domain name. It produced a long list of product launches, including some well known names like Namecheap, BrandBucket, and BrandPa, as well as many lesser known offerings including a number of AI-powered name generators. Here is the link for the domain name product list at Product Hunt.
Get Known By Developers
It is always good to network with people developing products and services, because in the future they just might reach out to you when they need a new domain name. I am not sure how effective this is, since I just joined recently, but with an active, professional and positive presence on Product Hunt, it may be helpful.
You can in your Product Hunt profile include multiple links, so someone who meets you can readily find your domain marketplace, blog, or company website.
Possible Outbound Leads
I don’t personally do outbound, but some may find Product Hunt a helpful way to find outbound leads. All of the usual caveats apply with respect to outbound if you plan to try this.
Product Hunt Alternatives
While Product Hunt is best known, it is not the only actor in this space. Rather generously Product Hunt has a page devoted to Product Hunt alternatives.
Starter Story is one of the better known and more widely used, although with a focus on interviews with founders. Even a cursory search showed some very impressive and insightful interviews, and I plan to look into this site more.
BetaList is free and easy to use, and is perhaps most similar to Product Hunt. Some products launch on both sites. I did not explore the alternatives in any depth while preparing this article.
I am a neophyte to Product Hunt, so I hope readers more familiar with the service will add ideas, tips and opinions in the comment section below. I plan to make browsing Product Hunt and BetaList a regular part of my week, and may for a future article do a statistically significant analysis of the names and domain names being chosen by launched products.
Very recently, @Michael Cyger announced the launch of Pyramid Solitaire at Product Hunt. By the way, the domain name for Pyramid Solitaire is the stellar pyramid.com.
@Michael Cyger mentioned that following Product Hunt might provide useful information for domain investors. In this article I look at the ways domain name investors might benefit from Product Hunt. At the end, I briefly touch on Product Hunt alternatives.
@LeanneMac of CrunchID followed up on Mike’s idea and has shared on X a couple of lists of the domain names being used by products recently launching at Product Hunt on a single day. I am not sure if she plans to continue this on a regular basis.
What Is Product Hunt?
Product Hunt is a site for listing new tech products and services. Every product listed has a short summary, sometimes a video or screen shots, and basic categorization data. It also has a link to the website for the product.
The community upvote products, as well as provide reviews and comments.
It is free to join Product Hunt and free to launch on the site, although paid promotion packages and ad campaigns are available. I believe Product Hunt also makes some money from events.
Many product launches are by a solo developer, while others are from the largest global companies. For example, the new M4 iPad Pro from Apple was a product on Product Hunt the day I was finishing this article.
Product Hunt, as the name implies, is for launches of products, not businesses. Some companies have a single product, but most will at different times launch different products.
Product Hunt started late in 2013, but has become much better known the last few years.
Let’s look at ways that a domain investor might use Product Hunt.
See What Developers Are Launching
Probably the most obvious use is to get an idea of what new services and products are launching, since that helps inform what niches are hot. You can readily search on any date to see the top launches for that day
For example, for May 8, 2024, there were 15 launches, but 3 of these were Apple related (new iPad Pro, new iPad Air and Apple Pencil Pro).
Screen capture of part of the launches for May 8, 2024, courtesy of ProductHunt
The launched products for May 8 included products in AI workflow, social media, audience software, AI agent, sketch, Ai data analytics, storytelling, feedback, screenshot software, productivity, SaaS, and translation. It is hard to determine clearly in some cases, but just over half involved AI in some direct way.
You can readily search over longer time periods, or even over all time. There is also a tab for products that are about to launch.
What Names and Domain Names Are Being Used
it is also valuable for domain name investors to get a sense of names being chosen for new products. Here are examples of some of the names from that day: Ringly, DataLab, SocialBee, Abstra Workflow, BeeBetter, Diseed, Launch Brightly, and Voice Cheap.
This look at a single day is certainly not a significant statistical sample, but, excluding the Apple products, 9 of the 12 used a domain name that is an exact match to their product name. One of the products just gave an App Store link. It is a tiny sample, but was interesting that two used the term ‘bee’ and several were involved with business workflow.
In terms of domain names, for that one day 5 used .com, 4 used .io, and 1 each for .fr and .social.
List Your Product or Service
Some NamePros members are also developers, and Product Hunt provides a free platform to get early interest for your product or service, along with your first few customers.
If you are planning to list a product, be sure to check the guide How to Post a Product on Product Hunt. Also note that they have strict policies with regard to manipulation, or even active encouragement, of upvotes.
There is also a visual Product Hunt Launch Guide. The guide has case studies of some famous products like Notion that used Product Hunt early in development.
Visual of start of the Product Hunt Launch Guide, courtesy of Product Hunt.
Note that blogs or newsletters are not eligible for launch on Product Hunt. Some of the domain marketplaces have been listed on Product Hunt. I found listings for Alter, BrandBucket, BrandPa and others.It seems common to do your Product Hunt launch after you have quietly launched and worked out any early bugs.
Research A Term
In the recent NamePros article How To Rate and Price a Domain Name two of the metrics that I covered were the number of active OpenCorporates listings and the number of CrunchBase listings on the term.
I had hoped that Product Hunt might provide a third metric, one that is particularly sensitive to early-stage, recent startups. While you can search a term and see a list (be sure to click the arrow icon to expand the list), it did not seem narrow enough to me to readily provide a single metric. However, it is one place to search when assessing the business case for a potential domain name acquisition.
Find A Product Or Service
Domain investors can also use Product Hunt to find products or services of interest to them. One of the launches this week was AI Illustration Generator. It is an inexpensive service to generate illustrations with a common look and feel for a website or product guide, using AI prompts. I can see a use personally for this, and have made note for possible future use.
Some domain investors use Carrd to easily generate visually beautiful one page websites, perhaps as a. domain lander. It’s free for a few sites, and has various paid levels with different numbers of domains and different features. Carrd launched on Product Hunt, and was actually the Product Hunt #3 product for 2016 launched products.
I did not realize Carrd had been around this long, and another advantage of browsing Product Hunt is you will learn of products before most people know about them.
Find Domain Services
Product Hunt might be a helpful way to find domain name services, such as AI tools for domain investors, niche marketplaces, etc. Of course NamePros is probably much more efficient for this purpose.
I searched for the term domain name. It produced a long list of product launches, including some well known names like Namecheap, BrandBucket, and BrandPa, as well as many lesser known offerings including a number of AI-powered name generators. Here is the link for the domain name product list at Product Hunt.
Get Known By Developers
It is always good to network with people developing products and services, because in the future they just might reach out to you when they need a new domain name. I am not sure how effective this is, since I just joined recently, but with an active, professional and positive presence on Product Hunt, it may be helpful.
You can in your Product Hunt profile include multiple links, so someone who meets you can readily find your domain marketplace, blog, or company website.
Possible Outbound Leads
I don’t personally do outbound, but some may find Product Hunt a helpful way to find outbound leads. All of the usual caveats apply with respect to outbound if you plan to try this.
Product Hunt Alternatives
While Product Hunt is best known, it is not the only actor in this space. Rather generously Product Hunt has a page devoted to Product Hunt alternatives.
Starter Story is one of the better known and more widely used, although with a focus on interviews with founders. Even a cursory search showed some very impressive and insightful interviews, and I plan to look into this site more.
BetaList is free and easy to use, and is perhaps most similar to Product Hunt. Some products launch on both sites. I did not explore the alternatives in any depth while preparing this article.
I am a neophyte to Product Hunt, so I hope readers more familiar with the service will add ideas, tips and opinions in the comment section below. I plan to make browsing Product Hunt and BetaList a regular part of my week, and may for a future article do a statistically significant analysis of the names and domain names being chosen by launched products.
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