# Product hunt community outreach Human Guide

## What This Is For
Engage Reddit, Indie Hackers, Hacker News and other communities for Product Hunt launches. It gives the agent a clearer input/output frame for social content: what context to ask for, what decisions to make, and what usable artifact to return.

Use this as a human-readable version of the Product hunt community outreach agent skill. It is meant for marketers, operators, founders, and other non-coders who want the workflow without reading agent-specific implementation instructions.

## When To Use This
- Use this when you need a repeatable process for product hunt community outreach.
- Use this when the task needs judgment, examples, constraints, or a clear output format rather than a one-off prompt.
- Use this when you want to hand an AI assistant enough context to produce a usable marketing artifact.

## When Not To Use This
- Do not use this when you only need a quick factual answer.
- Do not use this when the work depends on private data you cannot share with the assistant.
- Do not use this as a replacement for legal, compliance, financial, or medical review.

## What You Need Before Starting
- The goal or business outcome you want.
- The audience, customer segment, or market context.
- Any source material the assistant should respect, such as notes, briefs, examples, URLs, or brand guidance.
- Constraints such as tone, length, channel, deadline, region, or approval requirements.
- A clear definition of what a good final answer should look like.

## Step-By-Step Workflow
1. State the job clearly: "Use the Product hunt community outreach guide to help me with..."
2. Add context: audience, goal, offer, channel, source material, and constraints.
3. Ask the assistant to identify missing inputs before producing the final output.
4. Have the assistant follow the skill-specific guidance below.
5. Review the result against the final checklist and ask for revisions where needed.

## Skill-Specific Guidance
- Identifying communities relevant to your product
- Crafting community-appropriate posts
- Timing cross-platform promotion
- Building relationships before launch
- Avoiding spam flags and bans
- Participate for 2-4 weeks before launch
- Add value through comments and discussions
- Build karma/reputation organically
- Share learnings, not just links
- Answer questions in your domain
- Help others with their launches
- Make posts interesting standalone

## Decision Points And Nuance
The original skill emphasizes: Workspace Context, Operating Contract, When to Use This Skill, The Golden Rules, Rule 1: Be a Member First, Rule 2: Provide Value, Not Just Promotion, Rule 3: Follow Each Community's Rules, Platform-by-Platform Guide, Reddit, Relevant Subreddits.

Use these questions to steer the work:
- What is the intended audience or buyer?
- What source material must be preserved?
- What should the assistant optimize for: clarity, persuasion, accuracy, speed, creativity, or conversion?
- What examples represent the desired quality bar?
- What should the assistant avoid?

## Common Mistakes
- Avoiding spam flags and bans
- Never cold-post your launch
- ✓ Technical substance required
- ✓ Don't ask for upvotes (ever)

## Copy-And-Paste Prompt
```text
Use the Product hunt community outreach human guide.

My goal:
[Describe the business outcome]

Audience:
[Describe who this is for]

Context and source material:
[Paste notes, examples, links, or existing copy]

Constraints:
[Tone, length, channel, timeline, must-include items, must-avoid items]

Before producing the final output, ask me for any missing information that would materially improve the result.
```

## Final Checklist
- [ ] The output matches the original goal.
- [ ] The audience and context are reflected in the answer.
- [ ] Important constraints and source material were preserved.
- [ ] The assistant made the relevant decisions explicit.
- [ ] The final artifact is ready to use, review, or hand to the next person.

## Source
This guide was generated from the manojbajaj95/claude-gtm-plugin skill entry for `ph-community-outreach`.

## Source Skill Notes
These notes preserve the nuance from the original skill. Use them as supporting reference when the workflow above feels too generic.

# Product Hunt Community Outreach

## Workspace Context

Read bootstrap context before asking questions: `strategy/brand.md` for brand, audience, offer, channels, tools, constraints, and metrics; `about/me.md` for personal voice; `content/ideas.md` and `content/calendar.md` for content planning. Use legacy product-marketing context files only as fallback. Save generated drafts to `content/<platform>/drafts/YYYY-MM-DD_short-topic-slug.md`, and route durable learnings back to `strategy/brand.md`, `about/me.md`, or `content/ideas.md`.

## Operating Contract

This skill is self-contained for its frontmatter scope: use its local instructions, references, scripts, and assets as the playbook; ask only for missing task-specific inputs; hand off to adjacent skills instead of expanding scope; and return an actionable artifact, decision, plan, draft, or diagnostic.


This skill helps you leverage online communities to amplify your Product Hunt launch while maintaining authenticity and following community guidelines.

## When to Use This Skill

- Identifying communities relevant to your product
- Crafting community-appropriate posts
- Timing cross-platform promotion
- Building relationships before launch
- Avoiding spam flags and bans

## The Golden Rules

### Rule 1: Be a Member First
- Participate for 2-4 weeks before launch
- Add value through comments and discussions
- Build karma/reputation organically
- Never cold-post your launch

### Rule 2: Provide Value, Not Just Promotion
- Share learnings, not just links
- Answer questions in your domain
- Help others with their launches
- Make posts interesting standalone

### Rule 3: Follow Each Community's Rules
- Read sidebar/rules before posting
- Check if self-promotion is allowed
- Note any format requirements
- Respect moderators

## Platform-by-Platform Guide

### Reddit

#### Relevant Subreddits

**General Startup/Product:**
- r/SideProject (253k) - Very friendly to makers
- r/startups (960k) - Broader startup discussion
- r/Entrepreneur (2.4M) - Business-focused
- r/smallbusiness (1.3M) - SMB audience
- r/InternetIsBeautiful (17M) - Cool web things

**Tech/Development:**
- r/webdev (1.7M) - Web development
- r/programming (5.6M) - General programming
- r/learnprogramming (3.5M) - Beginners
- r/opensource (400k) - Open source projects
- r/selfhosted (280k) - Self-hosted solutions

**Specific Niches:**
- r/SaaS (44k) - SaaS products
- r/nocode (120k) - No-code tools
- r/artificial (1.4M) - AI products
- r/productivity (1.1M) - Productivity tools
- r/design (470k) - Design tools

**Product Hunt Specific:**
- r/ProductHunters (small but targeted)

#### Reddit Posting Strategy

**Pre-Launch (2-4 weeks before):**
1. Join relevant subreddits
2. Comment helpfully on 10-20 posts
3. Build karma organically
4. Observe what content works

**Launch Day Post Template:**