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How Product Hunt really works

(medium.com)
695 points brw12 | 2 comments | 15 Dec 15 19:32 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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phantom_oracle ◴[15 Dec 15 21:43 UTC] No.10740690[source]▶
Nothing can hurt a well-meaning first-time founder of some useful side-project business then to learn that a non-entity like Product Hunt is a rigged game where the inner circle are simply gaming the system for their friends and people whom they benefit from and will benefit.

From "top 3% of coders" to "your product will get 1st spot if you scratch our back with a small slice of the pie or counter-promote our product with yours" to "we will only invest in you if you get referred through an acquittance of ours", the game surely does feel more rigged each day.

The upper echelons of tech sure does share more similarities with high-finance then they would like to admit...

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tomphoolery ◴[15 Dec 15 23:39 UTC] No.10741321[source]▶
> The upper echelons of tech sure does share more similarities with high-finance then they would like to admit...

Where do you think they all came from?

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dennisnedry ◴[16 Dec 15 01:44 UTC] No.10741825[source]▶
I was under the impression that today's VC guys were tech startup founders themselves 15 years ago. Is that incorrect?
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1. anon8418 ◴[16 Dec 15 02:12 UTC] No.10741912[source]▶
This is somewhat true. There are far more former founders in the VC ranks than 15-20-30 years ago when it was dominated by old-crust finance, old money types.

That said, the vast majority of the new incoming class of VCs (think associates, VPs, etc.) are mostly freshly minted MBAs with 2-3 years of post college experience, typically spent at a management consultancy, investment bank (or related prestigious front-office work at PEs, HFs, etc.), or in corporate strategy for a F500.

These people are definitely smart, with great pedigrees from the best schools. I'm just not sure they know a damn thing about the nitty gritty work of building a company. These are people who sat in boardrooms hunched over excel models and used to scheduling a million meetings to discuss strategy. Not rolling up their sleeves and executing.

I say all of this as someone with this background and with many peers who fit this mold.

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2. dennisnedry ◴[16 Dec 15 06:54 UTC] No.10742801[source]▶
Thank you for your honesty.