It depends on what you mean by “success”.

Being the number 1 product of the day is quite difficult and there is always a random part to it, as you never know who will be your competition. For the anecdote, I remember helping smartlook with their launch and they were in 2nd position for most of the day until Gmail launch an update.

However, you do not need to be 1st product of the day to be successful. All top 5 products will get a badge for the top product of the day which is a nice social proof. From my experience the main factor to getting in the top five are:

• Having an email list of users to ask for support (at least 500 people)
• Launch on a day that isn’t too competitive (Friday is the easiest to get to the top 5)

You can also get interesting results even if you finish in the top 20. A spot in the top 20 usually generates 200 to 300 visits to your website. That can be a valuable boost of traffic for early-stage startups. Product hunt also gives you a do-follow link which is realy nice in early stage.

I’m recommending any early-stage startup to make a no-fill product hunt launch as soon as possible. A no-frill launch requires max 5 hours of work and can give interesting results (finish in top 20).

A product hunt launch can also be used to raise funds. I personally used the first launch of QApop to raise 2500$ by selling LTD. If you want to learn more about it, check out this article:

Footnotes