>'You can call it the Reddit of tech products, the Hacker News of product launches, but none of these descriptions really capture what Product Hunt is.'
Neither does this article, or the linked site, for me at least - the article uses the word product 41 times, but I'm still not sure what is meant by 'product'.
Honest question, is there some particular criteria for being a 'product' or is it just the hot catch-all lingo for app / site / tool / service?
Perhaps the incredible similarities between many of those 'products' is adding to my confusion - I thought I was seeing some sort of design competition / template collection for a while.
Great questions, incision! Product is somewhat vague. On Product Hunt you'll find a variety of "products" from mobile apps, to websites, to chrome extensions, to electronics. The loose definition is intentional so that there's a variety and serendipity.
Since the community is largely startup folks (founders, investors, marketers, designers, engineers, etc.), you see a mix of products that generally appeal to that audience.
Do you have any plans on opening up the board and/or introducing some transparent review process? I'd have a product that has recently gone public but I couldn't find a way to contact anyone for an application. I'd love to get some feedback on where we need to improve.
Curious (potentially obvious) question - is PH itself actually a startup? Or is it a side project that could turn into a startup type of thing? Do you plan to monetize (outside of the email sponsorships that I think you do already)?
I participate heavily on PH, and while within a particular day you often see some theme emerge (one product shakes the memory of others), so far since inception it's been a really broad selection of "product types".
Many are tech/web/mobile based, but physical products that impress (new backpack designs, mattresses, etc) and other forms find their way into the mix and are some of my favorite finds.
The problem isn't that you can't create Show HN posts or that you can't find them at all. The problem is that they're mixed in with all sorts of garbage and barely see the light of day.
We have hundreds of HN'ers spending days, weeks, and months working on projects. It sure would be nice if they could be featured prominently and given a real audience for feedback.
Hmm... I don't completely agree that adding Show HN would be a replacement for Product Hunt. It feels like the two communities are pretty different, and creating a separate community for product launches gives you the flexibility to incorporate new social protocols (like the AMA) more easily, and add in visual elements like mockups.
I love that Romain referenced PG's Do Things That Don't Scale essay. That's exactly how Product Hunt has grown. Tons of emailing, tweeting, etc. and when it comes to building a community, being personable is the best way to build a healthy culture, imho.
Spot on. Reaching out to your earliest users directly - and not via a canned email - is really effective for building trust and loyalty in a community. Communities are often a reflection of the founder him/herself and this sort of grassroots outreach goes a long way toward attracting others.
I laugh when I read that quote because really it's a daily leaderboard of products that just launched. There's no way for the to say what's best when everything's only 5 days old.
It's true many of my startup friends are on Product Hunt. I trust that they will add useful contributions to the site because I know them. But the majority of the people (95%+) aren't my "friends" per se. The community has grown largely by referrals of existing community members and founders who's products have been submitted at some point.
I recognize the frustration some people have in not being able to contribute but the product as it's designed right now, will not scale if it's completely open to the public. We're implementing some changes in the coming weeks to prepare for this.
Again, I don't want anyone to feel "excluded" and are making a concerted effort to grow the community carefully. In the meantime, please add your name here and we'll send you a note once it's opened up: http://bit.ly/ph-contributor :)
I also find Product Hunt to be alienating and therefor a bad overall experience. I understand wanting to limit who can post new submissions at first, to avoid too many self promotional posts, but I don't understand the rationale behind preventing users from commenting. It's especially perplexing because the quality of comments on Product Hunt is pretty low right now so I'm not sure what you're even protecting. There are a lot of comments that don't add any value to the conversation, that say little more than "Thanks" and "Great job!", and hardly ever any substance filled replies. If you're worried about spam, I would think putting new commenters into a moderation queue until they've proved themselves to be worthy contributors would be an easy enough solution.
I love Show HN posts so I should be one of your biggest fans. I want to be. I love reading about new products and I love discussing them. But every time I visit your site I feel like I'm treated like a second class user. I wonder how many others feel the same.
EDIT: I do think Product Hunt will be a successful venture for you. It's a decent idea but more importantly you're hustling hard to build a community, which is no easy task. Most developers tend to put in a lot of hours building something scalable but are too far outside their comfort zone when it comes time to find and engage with users. That's something you're excelling at and I think it's the reason Product Hunt will ultimately succeed. I just think you're making a mistake with some of your earliest adopters. You should be treating us as if we're special, because we are. Instead you're asking us to be a part of your community but barring our ability to communicate.
"But every time I visit your site I feel like I'm treated like a second class user."
This is certainly not my intention. You make fantastic points, avalaunch. We're in the middle of adding threaded comments, upvoting, and other changes to the product pages so that more people can interact. Right now it gets a bit difficult to follow a conversation when there are 20+ comments. Once this is ready, along with a few other things, we'll open comments to more people and maybe everyone.
It's always easier to expand outward but you can't take away functionality or features from people. Slow and steady.
I appreciate your being frank. The problem is despite your interest to be open your personal network already makes you and the site bias. In all likelihood your are missing great products that come from other technology hubs. I'd much rather it open up and become more international. Until then it's a clique
Is it just for products that people have created, or do people suggest products they have found or are aware of hut not involved in?
EG: a friend of mine created MicroMuff, a windmuff for DSLRs. I have no connection with that, apart from knowing him. Is that a product welcome on product hunt?
I do like the idea of product hunt and I look forward to reading it.
Do they have an "AskProductHunt" feature? I'm looking for "contextual mapping of large organisations" - the user enters a bunch of stuff about an organisation and then other people can interrogate it to generate diagrams of the organisation. This would prevent similar information being used many times to create similar but slightly different charts. (If it helps: imagine an NHS health trust. There are exec and non-exec directors and then managers under them and under those people; and a bunch of different services; and a bunch of different staff; and a bunch of different patients. So a chart could be "management structure", or it could be "you are here, and in future we'd like you to progress to there but if things get worse you'll move to there" etc.)
Not only is Product Hunt important because of the visibility it provides to new products (and entrepreneurs), but also because it's arguably the most dense collection of high quality discussions about product development decisions. Notably, Ryan and his team have managed to accomplish this without being unnecessarily exclusive.
This is tremendously valuable for the technology community.
I appreciate that, Jason. I hope Product Hunt can help both large VC-backed startups and some kid that built a cool product, get the attention they deserve. It's early but we're seeing examples of this already. It's exciting.
I hope Product Hunt can help both large VC-backed startups and some kid that built a cool product, get the attention they deserve.
There's a huge opportunity for you to do that, but only if you open up participation. Because submissions and comments are limited to a few users, the kid with a cool product will only get eyes on it if she gets the right person's attention, which defeats the purpose.
I look forward to the 'Top Hunts of the Day' email in my mailbox every morning. Its probably the only newsletter subscription that sends a daily email that I haven't unsubscribed from.
Looking forward to the direction of Product Hunt now that Ryan Hoover is working full time on it.
Very Cool! Let me know if you'd like any help with Design. I can think of a few things that might help (both in terms of mobile/tablet UI and responsiveness). Not sure if you're looking for recommendations, but I'd add Sharing links/buttons for more Platforms than just Twitter (this is in the comments panel). Sharing to Twitter seems to be the only growth mechanic related element on the Site. Adding more links will make it easier for people to share their favorite products on more platforms, which will put you in front of more people. This will drive more traffic (and engagement) back to your Site.
Huge fan of Product Hunt. Show HN is great, but PH just makes it too easy to quickly discover, comment on, and share new products. Not to mention, the community there seems more "real" thanks to names/profile pics.
Can you explain this? I've looked at the site a long time ago and again today, and I still don't see any way to sign up (for an account, not the newsletter) or suggest products.
I dig visiting PH every couple of days but it would be nice to get comment/submission access. Or some kind of notice about what to do to join the commenters' club.
We're in the process of making changes to the product to scale the community and will be opening it up slowing afterward. Please add your name here if you'd like to be notified: http://bit.ly/ph-contributor
Are you allowed to re-submit your project multiple times on PH? Or is it just a one time thing? I'd love to submit again after adding cool new features to my projects.
What I would love on Product Hunt is a separate listing for beta products; either to try out and give feedback, or to find beta testers for my own products.
Hi Ryan, I remember seeing somewhere that you had recently applied to YC with Product Hunt.
It seems like you guys did not make it this time, which is unfortunate and surprising given PH's great traction and the impressive community you've built.
If that's the case, I was wondering if you had gotten any feedback on why PH wasn't accepted. Would love to hear your thoughts!
I like the layout of the site. I like that clicking links opens up a new tab. I like that comments don't pull you away from the main page. Seems quite well thought out.
Ryan - good chatting yesterday. Please give me a way to hunt out product leaders by date, ie. X product was #1 on 1/13, Y product was #1 on 2/14, etc :-)
Neither does this article, or the linked site, for me at least - the article uses the word product 41 times, but I'm still not sure what is meant by 'product'.
Honest question, is there some particular criteria for being a 'product' or is it just the hot catch-all lingo for app / site / tool / service?
Perhaps the incredible similarities between many of those 'products' is adding to my confusion - I thought I was seeing some sort of design competition / template collection for a while.