How to make a Product Hunt launch video on Mac

Vijayraj HOctober 24, 2026 · 10 min read

Your product finally works. Now you need a video that makes sense to someone who’s never opened it. I’d start with one task a customer can finish, record that task on your Mac, and cut everything that delays the result. Here’s how I’d make that Product Hunt launch video in Drishti.

Product Hunt’s launch guide asks for a quick demo of the product working. Its preparation guide calls video optional. For software you can demonstrate on screen, I’d use that space to show one useful outcome. A feature list can live elsewhere. Show someone why they’d use your product.

Make the small interface readable first

It’s easy to judge the demo on the same large display you recorded. Shrink it to a small player and the useful part becomes a row of tiny labels. If the viewer can’t read the result, a sharp recording hasn’t done its job.

Record the actual workflow in Drishti. When a new recording first opens in the editor, Auto Zoom generates editable keyframes from your recorded clicks and typing. You don’t have to press a button to create that first set. Review the Auto Zoom lane and adjust any zoom that distracts from the explanation. Keep the input and the finished result in view long enough to read.

Drishti’s smart pan follows cursor movement with easing. Cursor smoothing, scale, and click effects help the viewer follow your hand, too. Pick a visible cursor and one restrained click effect. Then stop moving it while you explain the result. A pointer circling an entire dashboard makes the viewer work out what you meant to show.

Make it look like a product, not a screen grab

Your video sits in a gallery next to launches that clearly had a designer on them. A raw recording with your dock, menu bar, and a messy desktop around the edges looks unfinished before anyone presses play. Nobody will say it out loud, but they notice.

Drishti puts the recording on a background you choose: one of 40 wallpapers, 15 gradients, a solid color, your own image, or a blur. Add padding, rounded corners, and a soft shadow, and the window reads like a framed product shot. Hide Menu Bar trims off your clock and notification icons. If your brand has a color, pick a gradient or solid close to it and save the whole look as a preset, so the teaser and every later video match.

Cut the setup before it swallows the demo

As a founder, I’m tempted to explain why a feature exists before showing it. That’s usually the paragraph I’d cut. Open your demo account, prepare the input, and start close to the useful action. Nobody needs to watch you find a file or sign in.

Here’s an 80-second plan for a support tool that turns a customer question into a draft reply. Substitute your own input and outcome. Each beat includes how to record, frame, or cut it in Drishti.

Opening on the finished result pays off twice. An embedded YouTube video shows its thumbnail until someone presses play, so use that same frame as the thumbnail when you upload. People see the payoff before they’ve decided to watch.

Record the flow with brief pauses between beats. In Drishti, trim the ends, then use Cut mode (C) or split at the playhead with Cmd+B. Delete the hesitation or loading stretch and the gap closes across every lane, keeping captions, zooms, and sound effects in sync. Watch the join once more. The action still needs to make sense after you remove the wait.

Make the explanation survive the mute button

Watch the whole cut with the sound off. Plenty of people browsing a launch will, at least for the first few seconds. If the task and the result don’t make sense in silence, the video depends on a voice nobody turned up.

Drishti transcribes speech and adds karaoke-style captions automatically in nine languages, highlighting words as they’re spoken. Read the transcript carefully, especially your product name, technical terms, and acronyms. You can edit it in the Subtitles window. Speech recognition doesn’t know your oddly spelled startup name just because you’ve spent a year saying it.

Keep the narration literal around key actions: “Choose a source” is easier to connect to a click than “Bring your knowledge together.” Leave a little room after the finished result appears. Captions can explain what happened, but they shouldn’t have to rescue a result you whisked away before anyone could read it.

Show your face without covering the proof

A brief introduction shows who built the product. I’d show my face while explaining the problem, then give the interface room during the detailed part. A camera bubble sitting over the answer you’re selling is a surprisingly easy mistake to miss.

In wide or square output, Drishti’s camera cue track lets you place Bubble, Split, Camera Only, and Screen Only cues for specific stretches. Split puts the camera beside the screen; Screen Only clears it for the important detail. You can change those choices after recording. If you keep Split during a zoom, the screen fills the frame and the camera becomes a bubble, then both return to their columns afterward.

For the room behind you, use Drishti’s camera background blur, removal, or a photo backdrop. Keep it simple, then get back to checking the demo itself.

Cover private data before it becomes public footage

Use sample data for the take. Still, watch for the real email address in an account menu, a customer name in a sidebar, or a terminal containing a key. Zooming in can make a detail legible that you didn’t notice during capture.

In Drishti, move to the point where the detail appears, add a Blur or Pixelate mask from the Mask menu, and draw the region on the preview. Extend the mask’s timeline pill across the full stretch that needs covering. Multiple masks can cover separate areas at once. Blur and Pixelate switch on and off instantly, so there’s no fade briefly exposing the text.

Replay the masked stretch, including its first and last frames. Check again if the page scrolls or the window moves. I’d rather redo a sample-data take than ship a secret under a region I haven’t checked. Editing and masking stay on your Mac until you choose to share the finished file.

Make a vertical teaser from the same demonstration

For an X or LinkedIn teaser, I’d make a shorter vertical cut showing just the input and result. In Drishti, trim to that stretch and choose 9:16 from the editor toolbar’s aspect menu.

Then go to Editor > Inspector > Camera > Camera Layout. Split puts the screen and camera above and below each other, Bubble keeps a larger camera bubble over the screen, and Presenter removes the camera background. For a dense interface, compare the layouts before committing. The Camera Cue lane is hidden in 9:16, so choose the portrait layout there instead of trying to reuse your wide-format cues.

Masks stay anchored to the source recording when you change aspect ratio or camera layout. Review the teaser’s captions, framing, and mask coverage from beginning to end. A good wide demo doesn’t automatically become a readable portrait cut.

Leave time for export and the YouTube handoff

For the gallery version, I’d export 16:9 in H.264. Choose a resolution that keeps the useful text readable. Drishti supports H.264, HEVC, and ProRes 422, up to 4K at 60fps. It renders locally with Metal, and H.264 and HEVC use your Mac’s hardware video encoder. There’s no cloud render queue between your edit and the local file.

Play the exported file before uploading it to YouTube. Check the opening frame, the smallest useful text, captions, and every masked stretch. Then test the full YouTube link in your Product Hunt draft. Product Hunt’s troubleshooting help warns that fresh uploads may need about 12 hours before integration works and says restrictive sharing or embedding settings can cause failures. Finish the upload the day before so you have time to fix a bad cut or a link problem.