Three weeks before launch, second-brain-cloudflare had 0 stars on GitHub.
Yesterday it reached 168.
This is an honest account of how that happened: what was planned, what was improvised, and what I'd advise someone doing this for the first time.
What I built and why
Every AI session starts from zero. Projects, decisions, preferences go away the moment the window closes. I grew frustrated enough to build a solution: a memory layer that persists across Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, and any MCP-compatible tool. I self-hosted it on Cloudflare's free tier. It uses semantic search instead of keyword matching.
I built it for myself. Then I open-sourced it because this problem wasn’t mine alone.
The three weeks before launch
Most Product Hunt launch advice focuses on launch day. The three weeks before it matter more.
I posted on Reddit, participated in Discord communities, released four versions (v1.3 to v1.6), created an Obsidian plugin, wrote technical articles, and directly messaged builders. None of this was organized around a launch date. I was just trying to show it to people who might use it.
Stars grew slowly: 50 by May 13, 80 by May 23, and 90 by May 29.
That slow buildup matters. The Product Hunt launch didn’t create momentum; it boosted the momentum that already existed. I don’t believe a launch on day one would have resulted in even a third of those numbers.
Finding the right hunter
I got lucky here, and I'm honest about that.
fmerian has 67K followers on Product Hunt. He hunted Mastra, which eventually got 20K GitHub stars. When I reached out, he asked one question: "What's your goal with this launch?" Not "what does your product do" but what's your goal.
That question forced me to be specific: I wanted awareness among developers frustrated with siloed AI memory, GitHub stars, and a contributor community. I sought feedback from builders using it across various tools, not monetization—community first.
He suggested launching on a Sunday. Less competition means more developers on Product Hunt during weekends. That advice alone was worth more than any paid promotion.
If you're planning a Product Hunt launch, find someone who has done it recently, understands your space, and will engage with your product. The relationship matters more than the number of followers.
Launch day
I was up at 3 AM.
The first few hours were mostly waiting—ranks are hidden during a randomization period. By 4 AM, we had 9 upvotes and a few notable early voters. By mid-morning, the comments began coming in.
Here’s a piece of advice that differs from most launch guides: reply to every comment as if it were a one-on-one conversation. Don’t treat it like a support ticket or just say thank you. Provide a real response.
Builders asked sharp questions about conflict resolution, data ownership, multi-client memory, and temporal recall. Those weren’t support requests; they were the real product conversation I had been trying to have for three weeks. Taking each question seriously resulted in better follow-up engagement than any post I made that day.
Final result: #3 Product of the Day. 253 upvotes. 46 comments.
What the star chart actually shows
That near-vertical line on May 31 represents roughly 80 stars in a single day. But the shape before it is what I keep examining: three weeks of slow, steady, organic growth. The launch caused a spike. The work before it laid the foundation.
Without that foundation, the spike probably wouldn’t happen. Or it might happen and then immediately flatline with no retention.
What I'd do differently
I would start community conversations earlier and lead with questions instead of announcements.
Most of my pre-launch posts were “here's what I built.” The Product Hunt comment threads showed me what people really wanted to discuss—conflict resolution, data ownership, whether this works across accounts and devices. If I had led with those questions earlier, I would have built a more engaged audience by launch day.
Another thing: don’t treat launch day as the finish line. The comments kept coming in the next morning. The GitHub stars kept rising. The launch opened a door—what happens after it depends entirely on what you do in the first 48 hours.
Where it goes from here
168 stars. 28 forks. Two roadmap features came directly from Product Hunt comments.
Building in public. Everything is open source at github.com/rahilp/second-brain-cloudflare.
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