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How Product Hunt really works

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695 points brw12 | 2 comments | 15 Dec 15 19:32 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source
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birken ◴[15 Dec 15 21:14 UTC] No.10740521[source]▶
Hacker News is a long-running, open, inclusive startup community that is subsidized by a related business, doesn't sell anything, and has proven time and again to do things good for the entire startup community.

Product Hunt is a new, closed, exclusive startup community run by a for-profit company that will eventually have to start selling you something.

Not sure why people complain about PH so much... just don't use it. There already is a perfectly good community of startup people out there that has much more incentive to stay "pure" than a for-profit one. Sure, HN isn't perfect, but fundamentally it is always going to be better than any for-profit communities.

(And also this obligatory comment: If you want to build a successful company, stop wasting your time browsing startup communities and spend your time talking with users and building your product)

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prawn ◴[15 Dec 15 21:20 UTC] No.10740564[source]▶
There already is a perfectly good community of startup people out there that has much more incentive to stay "pure" than a for-profit one.

Until you finally launch, submit a Show HN to have your perceived turn in the sun and it completely bombs. I can see why people look to alternatives for a chance to get feedback or traction for their product, whether it's dominated by insiders or not.

I don't visit Product Hunt but have had a product top their daily list on launch and it was helpful. The equivalent Show HN didn't really go anywhere.

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spenvo ◴[16 Dec 15 01:42 UTC] No.10741818[source]▶
I had the opposite experience (illustrating that our stories are just anecdotal), but I don't blame Product Hunt at all -- I was grateful for the chance to be featured on their main page. My Show HN brought ~6K visitors in the first two days where my PH post brought <1K. I didn't know anyone, just emailed their team and... added PH to the extension (no one asked me to, just thought it'd be cool).

[1] Show HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9992735 [2] PH: https://www.producthunt.com/tech/kiwi-conversations

Admittedly, it was a bit humbling to see a cat "meow" soundboard quickly surpass my project on PH -- but like I said, no regrets.

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1. prawn ◴[16 Dec 15 01:52 UTC] No.10741851[source]▶
Not trying to draw a comparison between traffic levels, but saying that it's very easy to submit and bomb on HN, and so drive users to an alternative as their next hope. Obviously some people submit anywhere and everywhere.

But if HN is a home to many of us, it'd be nice if it was also a viable testing ground for our new projects, feedback, etc.

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2. spenvo ◴[16 Dec 15 03:19 UTC] No.10742149[source]▶
It wasn't just traffic: it was the feedback. I got over 50 comments on HN on about 55 votes. on PH, I got 3 comments on about 35 votes. If HN is known as being too negative, I find PH comments come from almost forced optimism -- people are too cautious with what they say at the expense of constructive feedback.
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