10 Platforms for Startups to Launch Your Product

Let’s say you have your product fully developed. What’s next? How people will know about it? What is the startup launch platforms? And how those platforms can help you to spread the word about your product?

Read our article “You Don't Have to be Superhuman to Launch Your Product Again and Again”.

The right place to showcase the startup allows you to get investors, receive feedback from the early adopters, and gain customers’ attention. The list of the best business startup platforms will be useful for every startup owner and entrepreneur who launched a new product. From mobile app and web development startups to web design platforms or even eBooks will hugely benefit from launch platforms. Since the platform provides access to a wide audience who can read, download, and test new digital products - such an audience is the key component of further product success.

In this article, we’ll provide 10 startup launch platforms and briefly discussed why we’re so empathetic about them.

Why does Product Launch Important?

Launching a new product is not an easy task. Startups and even established businesses do not pay enough attention to the product launch strategy. In fact, product launch is the most crucial element in the whole product development chain.

Usually, businesses spend loads of money and time for the new product development, while completely ignoring the product launch. As a result, your product can fail. Especially this is true for B2B companies.

10 Platforms to Boost Your Startup Launch

Nowadays, there are a lot of platforms suggesting a solid basis for your startup launch. But what benefits can the platform give to your startup? What are the main do and don’t of the platform? And how to choose which one is the best for you? Check out the following list with the top platforms for a startup to launch your product.

BetaList

Betalist is a platform where users can discover the latest small businesses. As an entrepreneur, you can use this platform to showcase your startup. Early adopters, bloggers, journalists as well as investors will be able to review and provide feedback about the startup featuring on BetaList. It has been home to featuring some of the world’s biggest startups today as we know them before they launched. There are both paid and free subscriptions depending on your needs.

Founded by Marc Kohlbrugge in 2010.
Benefits and the ways to promote a startup: After the startup is submitted, there will be a review process to check if the business matches the platform criteria. If the process is successful, the entrepreneur gets two months to feature the startup. The platform could be useful even at the stage of market research. You can browse startups by both industry and regions to check out existing small businesses and come up with a unique idea for your product to stand out.
Startups that used this platform: Pinterest, InVision, Airtable, IFTTT, About.me, Nuji, Skillshare.
Do and don’t on the platform: It should be a technology startup (software or hardware). The product should not be recently launched without press coverage or any other marketing effort. The landing page should include custom and unique design and description of the product/services. Avoid using template and default styles. The signup form should be via email or have the form of social media connection (like Facebook or LinkedIn have).

Product Hunt

Product Hunt helps users to be up-to-date with new digital products and concider to be the best social media platform for startups. The landing page of the platform includes the list of startups recently launched. It has a voting system that enables the product to rise in the list of new products. The startups on technology, games, fitness, productivity, etc.. are suitable to be featured on the platform. ProductHunt aims to attract customers who are always in search of newer products. The subscription is free.

Founded by Ryan Hoover in 2014.
Benefits and the ways to promote a startup: The benefits of Product Hunt are that the voting system enables the startup to go viral and automatically attract potential customers and investors.
Startups that used this platform: Station, Houseparty, Robinhood, Front, Digit, Shyp, Gimlet Media.
Do and don’t on the platform: The product should not be recently launched without press coverage or any other marketing effort. The description should be clear and informative. It is better to provide some video presentations as well.

Hacker News

Hacker News is a social startup platform with a focus on relevant updates and stories about entrepreneurship and computer science. It is run by Paul Graham's investment fund and startup incubator, Y Combinator. Therefore, it’s a great service if you want to target the tech people. It currently has 150k plus subscribers so it can be a great community to promote your offering to a community of hackers and entrepreneurs. The subscription is free, so visit the website right now and spread the word about your product.

Founded by Young Chang in 2012.
Benefits and the ways to promote a startup: The user can submit on-topic (startup and tech related news) and off-topic stories (politics, socio-cultural or economic news with a new view on the specific phenomena).
Do and don’t on the platform: The user has to submit the original source following the best practices of submitting criteria. The title should not be written in caps lock for the sake of standing out. Submitting the same story several times is not allowed. The most important thing is that the user shouldn’t use the platform for self-promotion. The story on the platform should have an educational context and tell readers valuable and new content.

Reddit (r/Side projects)

Reddit is a social news aggregation, web content rating, and discussion website. It’s a great platform to get very quick feedback and have discussions on any topic. Reddit-Side projects is a great subreddit for new startups to get feedback on ideas for businesses and small side projects. Being engaged with the community of 9k subscribers will help you spread the word about your idea. Registration on the platform is free of charge.

Founded by Alexis Ohanian and Steve Huffman in 2005.
Benefits and the ways to promote a startup: Even though the platform is usually called a startup marketing platform, yet Reddit is not a platform for self-promotion. It is a great tool to build a network and go viral with interesting stories. The platform is great for customer service and establishing the network around a specific idea or news.
Do and don’t on the platform: The platform is required to be active and post on the regular basis. The user can subscribe to subreddits of the interest to get regular updates. Different subreddits prefer to use different types of headlines. Posting a “teaser” text and a link to the website is a bad practice. It’s better to post 50-80% of the content and ask readers to check out the rest of the content following the link.

Angellist

Angellist is the world’s largest social media platform for startup businesses. The core focus is on the tech startup community for entrepreneurs and angel investors. The goal of the platform is to make the process of finding investments for startups easier. It helps to find potential investors and recruit talents. It’s now also starting to become a social network, meaning you can connect with investors and high-net-worth professionals to help receive funding for your startup.

Founded by Babak Nivi, Naval Ravikant in 2010.
Benefits and the ways to promote a startup: The platform helps you to exhibit startup globally and find investors for funding your startup. After creating the startup profile on Angellist, the user and public section of the newly created profile will be visible to the general audience and search engines by default.
Startups that used this platform: Tinder, Medium, Hinge, Meerkat, Yelp.
Do and don’t on the platform: Users should use a professional profile photo following the short description of the entrepreneur (role, location and brief resume). The description of the startup needs to be clear and distinct. Design is customized and unique. Using a free or paid template is restricted.

The Startup Pitch

The Startup Pitch is a great platform to present startups. It is in a pitch format, just like what you would send to journalists to have your startup being featured in a major publication. The platform also has a community of subscribers of 25k who will give you feedback on your pitch and even share what your startup is all about. You will get to interact with the community of entrepreneurs who will give you feedback on your startup. It’s completely free.

Founded in 2008.
Benefits and the ways to promote a startup: After submitting the form on the website, it is reviewed and gets published on the platform.
Do and don’t on the platform: The small business should not include coupons system or affiliate sales. Adult content websites are restricted. The startup should be recently launched. Established businesses are not allowed to be featured on the platform.

Springwise

Springwise delivers globally curated daily innovative ideas that matter - driving positive and sustainable change, across all sectors. It is a fantastic platform covering all facets of startup ideas and innovation including; health and education, lifehacks, Internet of Things, fashion, retail, entertainment, homes & housing and many more.

Founded by James Bidwell and Reinier Evers in 2002.
Benefits and the ways to promote a startup: They only feature 3-5 daily new ideas/products to it’s the social reach of over 400,000 users, but if you have a compelling product that is truly innovative and want to gain significant exposure, get featured on Springwise.
Startups that used this platform: Udemy, Ebay, Deloitte, Eurostar, Holland, Edelman.
Do and don’t on the platform: The product should be recently launched without press coverage or any other marketing effort. The landing page should include custom and unique design and description of the product/services. Avoid using template and default styles.

SignUpFirst

SignUpFirst is a unique platform unlike others out there and taps into the growth hacking practice of referral marketing. It can be best described as a crowdfunding site but for signups startups in beta. It is an ideal platform to provide an incentive for potential customers to get your product if it is still in its development phase. You can state the number of sign-ups you want on your site and state the reward you are offering. All for free.

Founded by David Allison in 2015.
Benefits and the ways to promote a startup: The concept is for both founders submitting their product, and an opportunity for users and customers, to get their hands on great discounts and deals. The platform is able to promote the small business and find useful contacts for future cooperation.
Do and don’t on the platform: The startup should be brand new. Have a clear project idea and clear design.

BetaTesting

BetaTesting is a startup user testing platform. It provides users with beta testing for web and mobile applications, websites and digital products. The user gets feedback from real-life testing and detailed feedback describing the pros and cons of the product. The overall community of testers is about 150K worldwide.

Founded in 2012.
Benefits and the ways to promote a startup: The BetaTesting team closely cooperates with the user to set the primary testing goals and choose the right audience. The major benefit for startups is that feedback from the real-life users allows entrepreneurs to frame the business strategy and work on its weak points. Based on the testing result, the startup can adjust to the required demands. As a result, the product can be expanded or reduced in functionality and have more user-friendly design.
Startups that used this platform: The New York Times, Xerox, Clef, Drupe, Musical.ly.
Do and don’t on the platform: To get efficient results, users should be able to provide a business description and clear business objectives.

Launching Next

Launching Next is the home of tech startups worldwide. The platform has a huge list of launched startups and startup ideas. The entrepreneurs can plan, build, launch, and optimize their small business within one platform. After the submission of the form describing your startup, the platform connects with you to arrange to publish on the platform. Submitting to the platform is free of charge.

Founded in 2013.
Benefits and the ways to promote a startup: The platform provide great content for startup owners. The Launching Next team individually interviewed startup founders to know more details about their experience of launching and what tips they can give to other startup entrepreneurs.
Do and don’t on the platform: Don’t try to copy the others. The platform accepts the unique ideas and custom solutions to existing problems. The meaningful and valuable startup idea is a key to success.

Bonus List

We mentioned only the most convenient and efficient platforms where you can launch your new product. There are also a lot of similar websites with similar features so take a look and do your research. Note, that if your small business is related to the specific market niche - then it will be better to look through these niche websites and platforms for launch.

For example, if your startup product or service can help designers, then Designer News is something that you will not want to miss. Since it can be a great place to promote your product then as you will be able to target designers in a platform of 17k subscribers who get to sign up free of charge.

Conclusion

We made this list of the top startup launch platforms for you, to have more information about each platform. The next time when you will launch your product you will know exactly what social media platforms for startup businesses to use. Depending on the subject of your product, choose the best-suited platform, read the criteria, fill out the form on the website, and submit your startup.

Eventually, the details of your startup will be featured on the platform so millions of users will have access to your product. Launch platforms can get you investors, feedbacks for early adopters, and attract relevant customers. Step-by-step you will build your digital marketing presence online and frame your brand awareness.

If you know the similar platforms suited for product launch, feel free to contact us and we gladly add your suggestion to the list.