Your post is an example of what frustrates me about Product Hunt (and, at times, HN) - people crowbaring in a reference to their startup/project/idea and throwing in a few links in a very transparent bid to get referral traffic from a popular message board service. On Product Hunt in particular it starts to sound like an echo chamber of people shouting startup names at each other. Worse, it seems like the Product Hunt is the goal rather than the tool - much like TechCrunch back in the day, everyone's success metric is attention from peers rather than customers.
In this case I included a link because I think it strengthens the argument. Product Hunt was built to help people like me—and it did. Here's the proof!
And I think my post confirms what you're saying—I was able to use Product Hunt as a tool to help reach my goal. I know this isn't always the case, which is why I wanted to give my experience.
Until it is a platform that offers universal opportunity to everybody who builds something, then it is really no more than a pot luck draw that is too reliant on timing, marketing shine, and debasing yourself in front of 'influencers' in the hope that they will give you their royal blessing.
I've self posted, and had other post to PH in the past, with dismal results. Once I had a product of mine 'hunted' on there by a total stranger, which was cool, but I couldn't add anything to the conversation because I was never added as a 'maker' despite several requests via the site and Twitter. I missed that magical 24 hour window and the product listing sank like a stone never to be heard of again (because of their 'no posting repeats' rule).
Don't even get me started on the humiliating experience of having to beg around for an invite in the early days just so I could participate in discussions.
If people overdo it, we ask them to stop (and in extreme cases ban them), so feel free to email [email protected] if someone is overdoing it.
Is there some way to search comments for regex? Just for my curiosity.
Not publicly that I know of. Might make a good API project.
Well put. That's the kind we want to encourage, and if someone goes beyond that and overdoes it, it's not hard to take care of.
Did they? Maybe I don't understand how to use it but after I registered I couldn't comment on _anything_ at all. It seemed I was locked out of anything mildly interesting until I am invited?
I guess Product Hunt just isn't for me but I couldn't figure out how to do anything on that site.
https://www.amazon.com/Willpower-Instinct-Self-Control-Works...
What Ryan and Product Hunt did was incredible. So many people wanted to create an alternative to Hacker News and Reddit for product people. Everyone else failed but they figured it out. That's awesome.
Product Hunt personally helped me in my goal of becoming a independent app maker by showcasing my app https://www.producthunt.com/posts/focus. As of tomorrow I'm full-time indie (YES!) and I proudly display my Product Hunt badge on my app's page https://heyfocus.com/. I didn't have any connections there—I just made a product people liked.
And AngelList seems like a great fit. It looks like they're building a crowd-funding platform, and Product Hunt as a marketing/discovery engine makes perfect sense. In that context, Product Hunt is worth a bit of money.
This seems like a great outcome. Congrats!