
Let's Create a Better Product Hunt - BetterLaunch
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1hZ_w7zMC6CyeF_DHc2Mls7q7N67I1pP_9ntXlt4apvk/viewform?c=0&w=1
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minimaxir
As the person who started the Product Hunt beatdown last thread, and would
like nothing more than to see a good PH competitor, I regrettably have a few
issues with this.

1\. The hypothetical example you give about the Financial Times writing
favorable stories for investors is an example of _conflict of interest_ ,
which is a different issue than the elitist exclusivity discussed last thread.
(And much more gray)

2\. As noted in the previous thread, both Reddit and Hacker News are
transparent in terms of submission moderation, which is what is being proposed
here. (Albeit less modern)

3\. Having an anonymous account post this Google Doc does not build trust in
that you could build a competitor. There is more to building a link aggregator
ranking system than following a Rails tutorial.

4\. Having random people come together to build an idea just because they can
doesn't work well. That's why Idea Sundays stopped on HN.

My dream startup would be an optimized link aggregator; the use of upvotes as
a statistic for quality is why I spent so much time doing data analysis on
Reddit and HN data. But this isn't the way to build a competitor.

~~~
flashman
Ah, while I was writing my response you said the same thing a lot better. I
think any alternative to ProductHunt still needs an editorial team of some
sort. But the fix could be as simple as changing PH to include
'staff/influencer picks' and 'community picks', while requiring
staff/influencers to disclose their relationship to the product.

~~~
minimaxir
Obviously, any link aggregator would need full-time moderators, which is
another consideration for this mysterious PH competitor.

The notion that human curation is intrinsically better than algorithmic
ranking is a Silicon Valley trend I don't feel is accurate, but that's a topic
for another rant thread. (In general, I think the new semimanual approach
Hacker News has been doing is an interesting idea)

~~~
sillysaurus3
_semimanual_

It's not semi. That's the core reason why Lamer News had no chance of success,
even if their broken software had worked.

It's odd that it's a controversial idea. The best Reddit communities are those
that are heavily moderated.

To admit this is to admit that some people have better taste than others.
Maybe that's the controversial bit. But it's the cornerstone of any new
successful community. You see it pervasively everywhere you look, from SO to
Reddit to HN.

~~~
minimaxir
To clarify, I'm referring to the "second chance" mechanics implemented a few
months ago, where an article which got few upvotes may hours later get a spot
on the front page and maybe get some upvotes, or when you get an email asking
for an invitation to repost. Both processes require a human to determine what
is "good" and what is "not good."

~~~
sillysaurus3
Ah. Are you sure it's semimanual? It seems plausible that it could be a
mechanical turk.

The only automatic part seems to be the shape of a post's falloff curve. But
the falloff shape is probably selected from a list of shapes by a person.

~~~
dang
What we've been doing is sort of a software sandwich with a human filling.
Software does a first pass through all the stories to guess which ones might
be good candidates (otherwise there are too many for humans to review). Then
humans pick some candidates. Those go into a pool from which software randomly
picks one every so often and randomly places it low on the front page. After
that it's up to the community which ones are interesting. The ones that aren't
fall off the front page relatively quickly. I've been meaning to write some
code to collect data on how much frontpage time they get.

That's the current state. We do still send repost invites occasionally, but
mostly not, because users made it clear they don't like the duplicates.

I don't think the human phase can be automated. Instead, our plan is to open
it to the community, so it isn't just us and selected users picking stories.
The challenge is to design a mechanism for that which doesn't just reduce to
an upvoting system (since as the knight in Monty Python says about the grail,
we've already got one it's very nice).

We'll also probably publish the list of stories selected in this way, whether
or not they end up getting traction, because if nothing else it's alternate
reading material.

------
volaski
The problem with these criticism is that they seem to be coming from people
who have no idea how Product Hunt works. If you have ever actually had your
product featured on PH you would know better than this. Here's how Product
Hunt works: 1\. There are many of those so called "Insider" users. 2\. Then
there is a 2nd tier group of users who can comment. 3\. Then there's the rest.

The tier 1 group is not as small as you think, and they are pretty diverse
group of people from all around the world. When they post something, it goes
up straight to the featured page. There is no censoring. They are definitely
not paid by producthunt the company to submit these new products, they're
merely users sharing what they discover. Their main incentive for posting on
product hunt is to be the "first one" to discover a cool new app and share it
with others. Now if you understood this, think about how ridiculous all your
speculations are.

~~~
msravi
Then perhaps PH should be more forthcoming about this hidden "process" and
educate the "people who have no idea how Product Hunt works"?

~~~
volaski
Just a simple google search will show you tons of articles and blog posts
giving you more than enough tips really. People complaining about this just
shows that they didn't do their homework before submitting.

~~~
minimaxir
Ideally you shouldn't have to do homework before using the basic functions of
a website. (aside from reading Terms and Conditions, of course)

~~~
volaski
Would you say that about angel list too? I'm as much annoyed as you about
their opaqueness and it would be nice if they were more transparent but it is
what it is. It's your responsibility as an entrepreneur to make sure you don't
mess up the launch of something you've invested so much in.

------
dewitt
I think that people here are _way_ overestimating the importance of Product
Hunt.

~~~
funkyy
Not for small startup that cries for early adopters...

~~~
mladenkovacevic
But I don't think PH is good for early adopters at all... Unless your product
is directly aimed at startup founders or angels and VCs. For anything else,
you'll get the ultimate cross section of tire kickers - people trying out
hundreds of products for 5 minutes with the question "what can I copy here" or
"can I invest in this".

If you're after loyal users chances are PH does nothing for you.

~~~
AndrewKemendo
_Unless your product is directly aimed at ... angels and VCs_

If you want a "rocketship" then you pretty much have to be to compete.

------
flashman
This seems like an unnecessarily negative way to pitch a positive service:

* anyone who missed the story on HN today would have no idea what this was about,

* leading with accusations that PH is an "elitist/bro community" is needless antagonism, but most of all,

* you're pitching a non-conflict of interest alternative to PH without revealing anything about yourself.

------
Alex3917
I don't think this is going to work. First, ProductHunt and HN are both
basically fine as is. Second, the root cause of any issues that both have is
basically the same -- almost no one reads or votes on stories from the new
page, and the handful that do have all sorts of biases. The reason these
communities are able to function despite this is that they have a combination
of paid staff and trusted volunteers.

Third, the only way to significantly improve upon these sorts of communities
would be to build them on the block chain. But the technology to do that
doesn't yet exist.

~~~
davnicwil
> Third, the only way to significantly improve upon these sorts of communities
> would be to build them on the block chain

Genuinely interested, if you have the time, what do you mean by this? What
problems could be solved by building a community website on top of a
blockchain, instead of the current typical votes/comments in a database ->
feed sorted by ranking algorithm method, and how?

~~~
Alex3917
A lot of the killer algorithms that the blockchain enables probably haven't
even been discovered yet, so it's a bit difficult to say. But obviously there
are lots of things you can do with reputation, identity, transparency, group
decision making, etc., that just aren't really possible today.

------
touchofevil
I'm working on a Product Hunt competitor at the moment and I'm looking for a
technical co-founder. If anyone is interested, please email or DM me on
twitter.

~~~
sergiotapia
Are you an idea guy, or actually working on the code as well?

~~~
touchofevil
...I'm learning to code...(sound of pitchforks rustling)

~~~
goldenkey
For anything early enough such as an MVP, you will be utterly useless. You
need a programmer. However a programmer really doesn't need you.

~~~
touchofevil
Yeah, I guess there's no way for non-programmers and programmers to work
together to create a startup.

~~~
lmm
You don't have to be a programmer but you do need to contribute more than just
an idea (e.g. domain expertise, business knowledge, sales experience).

~~~
touchofevil
Of course.

~~~
lmm
Then make the case for that. Give us some credentials, or experience, or...
just some reason why a technically skilled person would want to pick you
rather than anyone else as a cofounder. You're presumably going to want to see
the same thing from their end.

~~~
touchofevil
I had planned to give additional details via email. I just thought I might
bump into someone in these comments that was also interested in working on
something related to PH. However, that doesn't seem to be what I've found
here...

------
nipponese
The web app behind PH is trivial. You still need a human to curate and build
hype around the thing, and therein lies the problem. PH is rigged because
Silicon Valley is rigged.

~~~
l33tbro
Really? I think the Reddit model works pretty well. It's based on (as far we
know) organic upvotes from users. It's also engineered so it makes it very
difficult to game with upvote brigades and such.

~~~
tedmiston
> It's also engineered so it makes it very difficult to game with upvote
> brigades and such.

Besides shadow banning, do you know what exactly Reddit does to make it
difficult to game? I'd like to understand this better.

~~~
minimaxir
Vote brigading detection, and the presence of submission downvotes which will
correct any submission that really does not deserve to be at the top.

------
VeilEm
I keep seeing these references to money raised in the < $10 million range as
if it were a big deal. $6 million dollars is a lot of money for an individual,
but for a _business_ it's not, especially not in the San Francisco area.

At $6 million you can hire and pay for about 10 to 15 people for a few years
at a competitive salary and work from a not completely terrible office.

I'd like it if these posts weren't spreading "$N Millions of dollars!" fud so
much as if it were some terrible wasteful thing. This is not someone's
personal spending money that they're buying maseratis with, the founders do
not get to use this money to buy themselves nice cars. It's not a life
changing event, it's simply an opportunity to build a business.

~~~
Aeolun
10 to 15 people for a few years seems like quite a lot for a 'business' like
PH.

~~~
VeilEm
Not if you consider they probably want mobile apps for both ios and android as
well as a web page and sales. It's hardly anything.

------
kumarski
My number one problem with producthunt, keeping in mind that I still love
producthunt for the amount of traffic and customers it got us, is that you
can't say anything negative in the comments.

Even if it relates to bad science, bad product, etc....

It's all very 'kumbaya' positive, which is fine.

That being said, I think ProductHunt will be sufficiently difficult to
replicate.

~~~
DarthMader
Agreed. For example, there are too many kickstarter products using unproven
science being posted onto PH. Like the laser razer for example. I was shocked
when I read the comments in the PH post for that and found people praising and
backing the product but not questioning it. Would expect more from a community
that claims to be from the smartest hub in the world and is made up of
engineers, designers, etc. People need to be saved from themselves sometimes.

------
yalogin
Why is Product hunt such a big deal? Is it bigger than Techcrunch or some of
these tech sites? Honestly, have not heard of it till now. This whole trip is
just giving it more publicity.

I seriously want to know why someone should care about Product Hunt and what
its impact and/or place is in the tech world.

------
benologist

        helps startups get their 15 minutes and puts them onto the path of success.
    

Has there ever been a startup whose success was because of a PH/HN/Reddit
submission?

~~~
Alex3917
Dropbox got into YC because of their Show HN submission, and they got a lot of
their early users from Digg.

~~~
sillysaurus3
Not really. Dropbox got into YC for the same reason they beat all ~11
established competitors: They executed very well on a good idea.

------
mwilcox
We already have one: Hacker News

------
codesushi42
How to build a better PH?

Revert to the old PH design. I hadn't checked the site for > 1 month. There is
an incredible amount of noise and bloat in the new interface. And it
needlessly looks too much like Kickstarter, which arguably has discoverability
problems of its own.

------
andrewstuart
OK here is the business model for an "alternate PH": Organic listings,
everything gets listed as long as it is not already seen, non-biased voting
moves things to the top on a given day. Voting accounts must come from
LinkedIn to at least have a chance of being authentic. Founders may choose to
embargo their launch so their company isn't listed until they are ready.
Revenue comes from paid listings where startups can pay more to have their
startups listed on the right of the page, unconstrained by all the rules above
that apply to organic listing.

------
thecupisblue
This is like the "we can't get into the cool club" kids starting their own
"even cooler cool club". Life isn't fair, deal with it.

------
processing
If it attracts the same audience that upvoted a link shortner to the top post
of the day - that adds your own branded image on links - please call it quits.
Also can you ghost ban posts that have 20 people saying how awesome the app
is? or maybe just call the site astroturfing.com.

------
lowglow
I tried building something similar on
[https://techendo.com](https://techendo.com) I'm working on a refactor right
now that serves a very cool experience. You can still sign up and give me some
feedback.

~~~
lowglow
Hell, I'll even open source the entire thing so we can build it as a
community.

------
altonzheng
I like that the intention behind this, but it seems so naive to me. What's
preventing it from going down the path of product hunt... which I'm sure had a
similar mission early on.

------
tim333
I just put up [http://productvote.co](http://productvote.co)

Just a Meteor Telescope app on Heroku at the moment. Any thoughts?

~~~
joeblau
The technology it's built on is irrelevant. What makes Product Hunt is the
community and the way Ryan and his team curate products. They surface the
"best" products (based on their curated opinion) and that's what generates the
following. Your site looks good, but are you willing to put 2 years of
manually curating and scraping for products until you're successful?

~~~
tim333
There is that question... I'm not sure to be honest. I guess sites like HN
work because of the community and PGs hard work setting it up. I thought I'd
see if people are interested.

Could make it non profit or community owned or open source/ open admin
decisions or something?

------
intrasight
Your brain + Google search = best Product Hunt

------
l33tbro
This is awesome that you're stepping up to this chalkenge. Stuff like this is
what I truly love about the internet.

------
ilovefood
I'm working on something, but I have troubles naming it. If someone has an
idea just shout. It will be on Github

------
widgetic
Let's do it. Let's change the blue button from "GET IT" to "HAVE A LOOK"!

------
untilHellbanned
Why was this `[Dead]`, preventing people from commenting? High level of irony
on that.

~~~
dang
Not sure. A thread with many comments should basically never be [dead].

I think it was a bug squeezed out of the woodwork by unprecedented pressure
from flags doing battle with vouches. We've overridden it.

~~~
reitanqild
Am I right that flagging this post is misuse of flagging?

~~~
dang
I don't think I'd go that far. It mostly overlapped with the other Product
Hunt thread, so some people probably flagged it as a quasi-duplicate.

------
zerocrat
Great initiative. I signed up. Producthunt is now forever flawed. Hopefully we
can build a more open community together.

