Support you can actually count on.Not asked for. Earned.
Product Hunt ranks on early momentum, and you get one launch day to find it. LaunchClan turns 'please upvote me' into a commitment with two sides, a deadline, and a public record.
The mechanic
The loop
Five steps, and the product is mostly the third and fourth ones working without you having to chase anybody.
List your launch
Name, tagline, category, and the date you are going live. That is what founders are matched on — people launching near you, in a category where your audiences actually overlap.
Back someone, and wait for them to back you
Backing on its own commits nothing. A pact forms only when it is mutual, which is the moment two obligations are created — one per direction, each due on the other founder's launch day.
Your window opens on their day
At 00:01 Pacific on the day you owe, the obligation becomes actionable and stays open for 36 hours. You get an email when it opens, held until 7am in your own timezone so it arrives when you are awake.
Upvote, then verify in one click
We ask Product Hunt whether your account upvoted that specific post. One query, using your own connection. Nothing is uploaded and nothing is taken on trust.
The result goes on your record
Kept or missed, it is written to a public ledger and your trust score is recomputed. That record is what the next founder reads when deciding whether you are worth committing to.
Verification
Why there are no screenshots
This is the part that makes the rest possible. If support cannot be verified cheaply and honestly, a trust score is just a number somebody typed in.
No screenshots, by design
A screenshot is a claim about the past that anyone can fake in a minute. Asking Product Hunt directly is both easier for you and impossible to forge.
We only ever ask about one post
The check is scoped to the specific launch you committed to. Your wider vote history is never read, stored, or shown to your pact partner.
We never act on your behalf
The connection is read-only in practice: no voting, no commenting, no posting. Ever.
A screenshot fallback still exists
If you have not connected Product Hunt you can submit an image, but it goes to a human for review rather than passing automatically. The API path is unforgeable; an image is a claim.
Fairness
What stops it being unfair
A reciprocity network fails in one specific way: someone takes the support and never returns it. Most of the design is about that.
You are never punished for someone else's omission
If a founder never adds their Product Hunt link, there was nothing you could have done. That obligation is waived — not counted as a miss, and recorded as no trust event at all.
The gap between dates is shown before you commit
If their launch is three weeks before yours, you deliver first and carry the risk. The exposure meter makes that visible up front, and blocks the trades not worth taking.
Scores appear only when they mean something
Below 3 resolved commitments there is not enough evidence for a number to be meaningful, so we show "New" rather than a figure that looks like a judgement.
Every check leaves evidence
Pass or fail, each verification is written down. A trust score is only defensible if the reasoning behind it can be re-read during a dispute.
List a launch and see who fits
Matching is on genuine category and date overlap. You will see the gap and the record before committing to anything.