Complete List of Japan-Origin Products That Reached Product Hunt Daily Top 3 (2013–2025)
Giselle, a project I’m involved in developing, recently achieved 2nd place on Product Hunt’s Daily ranking.
This experience sparked a question: “How many Japan-origin products have achieved top rankings on Product Hunt’s Daily leaderboard?”
So I conducted a thorough investigation of Japan-origin products that achieved 1st to 3rd place on Product Hunt’s Daily ranking since Product Hunt was founded in November 2013.
The survey revealed that 9 products have reached the top 3 on Product Hunt’s Daily ranking, as far as we could confirm.
It started with STUDIO becoming the first Japan-origin product to achieve 1st place in 2017, and AI-powered products have been particularly prominent since 2024.
| Product | Company/Developer | Launch Date | Upvotes | Daily | Weekly | Monthly |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| STUDIO | STUDIO | Aug 25, 2017 | 340 | 🥇1st | – | – |
| xpression camera | EmbodyMe | Nov 11, 2020 | 273 | 🥇1st | 🥇1st | 4th |
| AI Picasso | AI Picasso | Sep 24, 2022 | 270 | 🥇1st | 🥉3rd | – |
| STUDIO AI | STUDIO | Apr 26, 2023 | 402 | 🥇1st | 🥇1st | – |
| AI Picasso - AI dance | AI Picasso | Jan 15, 2024 | 307 | 🥇1st | – | – |
| Kotae | Tokyo Techies | Jul 28, 2024 | 541 | 🥇1st | – | – |
| Minute | ktmouk | Sep 14, 2024 | 327 | 🥉3rd | – | – |
| Omakase.ai Voice | ZEALS | Apr 18, 2025 | 290 | 🥇1st | 5th | – |
| Giselle | ROUTE06 | Dec 29, 2025 | 507 | 🥈2nd | 🥉3rd | – |
*”–” indicates the product did not rank within the top 5 for that category, or the information could not be confirmed.
A no-code web design tool that became the first Japan-origin product to achieve #1 worldwide on Product Hunt.
It enables complete design-to-code workflows through drag-and-drop, realizing “the democratization of design.” CEO Jo Ishii said: “狙って Product Hunt にハントされるようにしていたが、まさか1位が獲れるとは驚いた” (We were deliberately trying to get hunted on Product Hunt, but I was surprised we actually got 1st place).
This success gave Japanese startups that followed the powerful encouragement that “you can be #1 in the world even from Japan.”
An AI chatbot developed by Tokyo Techies. True to its name, which means “answer” in Japanese, it automates customer inquiries using NLP technology.
It earned over 500 upvotes and more than 100 comments, also recording 2nd place in the weekly SaaS ranking. This is an example of how Japanese companies’ strength in “commitment to quality” was accepted in the global market in the form of trust.
An image generation AI app developed by AI Picasso Inc. In particular, the “AI Dance” feature that generates dance videos from a single photo perfectly matched short-video culture like TikTok, achieving Daily 1st place in January 2024.
It has been praised for enabling intuitive operations to generate sophisticated AI art while minimizing complex prompt inputs.
An open-source time management app developed by Japanese indie developer ktmouk. It allows you to organize and analyze “meaningful time” and “not meaningful time” through a folder structure.
What’s unique is that it achieved 3rd place with a “頑張らない Product Hunt” (low-effort Product Hunt) style — no social media announcements, no requests to famous hunters. It proved that even without massive fundraising, individual passion and ideas can compete on the world stage.
A voice customer service AI agent developed by ZEALS. Simply enter a URL to transform any website into a voice AI sales experience.
With the concept of “fusion of Japanese Omotenashi culture and technology,” it notably beat Google Gemini 2.5 Flash, which launched the same day, to claim 1st place. The provocative tagline “Chatbots suck — they don’t sell. This one does.” was also memorable.
An open-source visual AI app builder developed by ROUTE06. Build AI workflows without coding.
As “a challenge from Japan to the world,” it features a GitHub-native design. On launch day, it temporarily reached 1st place but ultimately finished in 2nd.
The development team’s responsiveness in immediately and thoroughly answering technical questions from users won the community’s trust. Their exemplary open-source behavior, including real-time bug fixes in response to reports, was highly regarded.
Here are the trends that emerged from the survey.
From STUDIO in 2017 through 2023, success stories were sporadic, but AI-powered products have surged since 2024. Kotae, AI Picasso, Omakase.ai Voice — all leverage AI.
Japanese “おもてなし” (Omotenashi/hospitality) is being implemented in SaaS and AI as “features that anticipate the user’s context.”
This design philosophy of “minimizing user burden” seems likely to succeed in global markets as well.
What STUDIO, AI Picasso, and others share is “Visual First” design — where value can be understood just by looking at screenshots or demo videos, without reading text explanations.
Product Hunt users decide interest within seconds, so intuitive UI becomes the ultimate weapon for offsetting the English language handicap.
Minute’s achievement of 3rd place with a “頑張らない” (low-effort) strategy is a great hope for indie developers. It suggests that empathy with a developer’s philosophy and story matters more than feature count.
Product Hunt’s day begins at 12:01 AM Pacific Time (around 5:01 PM Japan Time). Japanese teams can peak their activity during the first few hours after launch (evening to night in Japan), collecting initial upvotes and appearing high in the “Trending” section before the US West Coast wakes up.
Success for Japan-origin products on Product Hunt is no longer “exceptional” — this survey reveals it is the result of reproducible strategies.
Product design with a global market in mind from the start appears to be a key factor in Product Hunt success.
As AI technology becomes commoditized, the key to winning is shifting from “AI model performance” to “how to make AI easy to use (UX).” This is precisely the domain where Japanese developers, who value attention to detail and reliability, can shine brightest.
That’s all from the Gemba, where we surveyed Japan-origin products that reached Product Hunt’s Daily top 3.