
Product Hunt Is in Current Y Combinator Batch - spountzy
http://techcrunch.com/2014/07/17/product-hunt-the-popular-tech-product-discovery-site-is-in-current-y-combinator-batch/
======
untog
How is Product Hunt even a business? It's a fine site, but this feels like a
development similar to VC firms investing in PandoDaily - control the overall
message, ensure Silicon Valley becomes more and more of an insider's club.

Another disappointing move - I want the YCombinator that requested startups
working in energy, robotics, healthcare and internet infrastructure back:

[http://www.ycombinator.com/rfs/](http://www.ycombinator.com/rfs/)

~~~
6thSigma
YC is all about investing in companies that solve a problem. Gaining early
adopters is a problem that product builders have, and Product Hunt seems to be
doing a good job of helping to solve that problem.

~~~
owens99
Early adopters aren't people that read TechCrunch or Product Hunt. Those are
just geeks. Early adopters are a specific segment of a customer population
that have the pain the most and are willing to try novel solutions.

------
minimaxir
_Product Hunt started surfacing during the previous Y Combinator batch because
founders told each other to upvote their products._

Er, on most link aggregator websites, that's supporting a breach in integrity,
not a "we'll give you $120k seed money" event.

It's worth noting that this behavior is explicitly punished on Hacker News
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7972941](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7972941))
and will get you banned extremely quickly from Reddit.

This also leads to a _massive_ conflict of interest for any YC products that
are posted to Product Hunt in the future.

~~~
bri3d
The product started out as an invite-only platform for "product people" who
Ryan Hoover "knows and admires" so it was a voting ring for a valley in-group
since day one.

That it's managed to get so much traffic and now seed funding says a lot about
how the Valley works, and probably not in a good way. It's literally a
platform for someone's friends to upvote each other - "conflict of interest
for YC" doesn't even scratch the surface.

I do think the platform has value, but only insofar as that it helps those who
are playing the VC game by showing them what a certain "in crowd" thinks is
cool.

~~~
rrhoover
You're correct, we did seed the community with people I knew in startups that
I thought would (1) be interested in this type of community and (2) have
interesting discoveries/thoughts on tech products.

I won't pretend there aren't voting rings but they're not limited to the
"valley in group" at all. We see people across the world trying to game the
site, as people do on Hacker News, reddit, and other crowd-curation sites. As
I mentioned earlier on this HN thread, we have systems that help combat these
rings and in part thank to YC/HN's guidance, we'll improve this.

I also want to point out just a few examples of products that reached the top
of the day's board from non-valley, "famous" startup people. E.g.

\- Notifyr
([http://www.producthunt.com/posts/notifyr](http://www.producthunt.com/posts/notifyr))
was made by a 17 year old in the Netherlands. It's the 5th most upvoted
product right now

\- Instanerd
([http://www.producthunt.com/posts/instanerd](http://www.producthunt.com/posts/instanerd))
was made by Alex in Skopje, Macedonia as a small side project. It received
over 160 upvotes and ~5x the number of comments than the average submission.

\- Pie
([http://www.producthunt.com/posts/pie](http://www.producthunt.com/posts/pie))
is a team collaboration app by startup in Sigapore. It too hit the top of the
board.

Of course, not everyone will agree with what's most upvoted and an upvote
really is just a measure of interest, not a review.

~~~
julespitt
That people outside of the "voting ring" or "in-crowd" get voted up by a
"voting ring" or "in-crowd" sometimes does not obviate the central criticism -
insiders exclusively decide which outsiders are selected.

------
btipling
It’s an interesting product but Erik Torenburg (self-described "Product Hunt
Hustler" according to his Twitter profile) is not just a little bit of a
Twitter spammer:

[https://twitter.com/ErikTorenberg/media](https://twitter.com/ErikTorenberg/media)

He has posted hundreds of reply spam promoting Product Hunt on Twitter. He
must be running some kind of script because he has posted so many replies many
with product specific screenshots, I can’t imagine someone doing this manually
so quickly (every few minutes).

I understand “growth hacking” and sometimes promoting yourself can seem like
spam to some, but this really is just spam, and it’s not the good kind. This
is probably in violation of Twitter's TOS and not what people should have to
be exposed to, especially if you're trying to build a brand. This makes me
just want to never use the product, and I really like supporting YC companies
and prefer to give the benefit of the doubt and assume good faith in the face
of self-promotion. But this is just a little bit too much.

~~~
minimaxir
Being in YC does not guarantee that the companies will use ethical marketing
strategies, unfortunately.

Remember the InstallMonetizer incident while back:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5092711](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5092711)

~~~
27182818284
It does a better job than most, though. InstallMonetizer incident involved YC
staff contacting the founders and looking into it. They also implemented this:
[http://blog.ycombinator.com/founder-
ethics](http://blog.ycombinator.com/founder-ethics)
[http://www.ycombinator.com/ethics/](http://www.ycombinator.com/ethics/)

------
huhtenberg
Let me tell you my raw impression of PH as an outsider.

It's a cool kids club for cool SV startups as selected by founders and
employes of equally cool SV startups, where it's specifically "cool" rather
than "notable" or "innovative". Secondly, while you can't join their ranks at
will, you _will_ be given a membership to comment on your own product should
some cool kid submit it to the PH. Essentially they exchange memberships for
adding content to PH and helping build PH's credibility. It's a reasonable
approach, but they are just being ... too blunt and obnoxious about it.

~~~
rrhoover
I appreciate the feedback, huhtenberg. Can you describe what you mean by
"blunt and obnoxious"? Maybe we can improve our /about page copy or something
else?

On a related note: we just started handing out recommendations to give people
in the community the ability to invite others to join the discussion. This way
we can enable the community to help grow itself without opening the floodgate
entirely. The site and team simply aren't prepared for it.

~~~
huhtenberg
Blunt and obnoxious means that you don't bother with a basic reply when
contacted for a feature, but then become suddenly one's biggest fans and
friends, all forthcoming and excited once the product somehow ends up on the
site. This comes across an exceptionally cynical, disingenuous and high-brown
attitude. And, tangibly, the only benefit of joining in is the exclusivity of
becoming one of the cool kids. But that's of a little value if one doesn't
have any SV peeps to impress.

~~~
richardburton
This seems a little blunt and obnoxious. Ryan is trying to help people get
their products out there. I'm sure he has a lot of inbound email and may
struggle to reply to everyone.

------
pshin45
> _Second, there is a lack of diversity on Product Hunt. It’s mostly white men
> talking to white men. “The reason for that is that Product Hunt started out
> with people in my network, which is still largely guys,” Hoover said. “But
> we’ve been actively reaching out to women in the community to ask ‘what
> women do you feel we should give access to comment.’ It takes a lot of time
> and it’s hard to show progress.”_

I feel like this will probably be Product Hunt's biggest challenge going
forward. Product Hunt seems like a really well-designed and well-thought-out
site, but I can't get myself to use it (for now) because it seems like a
direct manifestation of one of the most criticized aspects of Silicon Valley,
namely its huge monoculture in which people are only building and promoting
products that solve First World Problems (i.e. their own).

With all that said, I hope Product Hunt becomes the type of diverse and open
community that I'm sure its founder also wants it to be.

------
fred_durst
Product Hunt is for the generation who grew up in the real estate collapse. I
feel like those same people will all leave for real estate once the market
fully recovers. They don't seem to have any real enjoyment or interest in tech
outside of getting rich.

The whole scheme that is Product Hunt may very well be the harbinger of the
end of the good times.

------
pintobean
This goes completely against yc's overall message and is confusing for an
entrepreneur like me who aspires to get into yc. YC has always said they only
invest in startups that have a shot at becoming billion dollar companies,
however small that probability might be.

So a company that has a 100% probability of a $10mil/yr business would stand
no chance against a company that has a 1% probability of generating
$1billion/yr.

Product Hunt is great and Ryan is great but I just don't see it.

~~~
rrhoover
It's really hard to predict what will become a billion dollar company,
especially with something as early as Product Hunt. We have several bets to
place but what you see today may look a lot different 1, 2, 3 years from now.

Julez Maltz has a good post about the importance of non-consensus opinion in
startups: [http://techcrunch.com/2011/08/20/don%E2%80%99t-follow-the-
cr...](http://techcrunch.com/2011/08/20/don%E2%80%99t-follow-the-crowd/)

~~~
pintobean
Sorry but that kind of logic is a cop out. I can point to tons of other
startups attacking small markets that could also become big. The founders are
super talented too. I've met many of them personally. If the market you were
attacking was expanding at a fast pace then your argument would make sense.

I would love to see a yc partner shed some light here.

------
austenallred
I'm not sure I understand how ProductHunt is better than ShowHN. Maybe I just
like having everything I read in one place, but after having our product
listed on ProductHunt I haven't really gone back.

Ryan: I would be interested to hear your take on why ProductHunt is
better/different than ShowHN. I don't mean this to be a jab, I just want to
hear your perspective.

~~~
rrhoover
Valid question, Austen! Kevin Hale and I shared our thoughts on this in this
Gigaom article: [http://gigaom.com/2014/07/17/as-product-hunt-joins-y-
combina...](http://gigaom.com/2014/07/17/as-product-hunt-joins-y-combinator-
hacker-news-starts-to-look-more-like-product-hunt)

I won't say PH is better than Show HN. It's just different. HN has a very
engineering-focused culture and you see that in the conversation and products
surfaced. Furthermore, you see fewer big startup product launches on Show HN
and more side projects. On PH you get a combination of both but often we have
well-known founders from prominent startups jump into the conversation. Again,
this isn't necessarily better -- it's a different type of content and
experience.

Personally, I like to see a variety of submission from VC-backed startups to
weekend hacks.

~~~
austenallred
That's very fair. Looking at the ShowHN stuff it's >50% stuff the general
public wouldn't understand. Congrats, and best of luck!

------
cmalpeli
Echo chamber anyone?

------
rrhoover
For fun, check out our Show HN from January :)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7144815](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7144815)

------
nostromo
People are thinking about this all wrong.

The YC network benefits greatly from having these types of startups in the
network. Even if Product Hunt doesn't raise a single dollar in funding or make
a single dollar in revenue, they have shown they are able to deliver customers
to early stage startups. And by bringing them into the fold, other YC
companies get preferential access to a new way to find customers. It's clearly
a win/win.

------
xylophonics
Nice, congrats! I read Product Hunt pretty regularly.

What's the big picture plan for Product Hunt?

Are there going to be features like a directory of products, in addition to
new launches? I agree with others that it's a lot like Show HN still, and have
always hoped you'd build more specific product-focused features too.

------
aashaykumar92
Awesome! I never really thought Show HN would stop ProductHunt from growing.
They're similar, but have key differences.

It's also cool that they let you know when your product is on PH and validate
posts. Only thing I wish is that they had a little better/more responsive
customer service but I guess they are still in their initial stages. One of
their moderators posted my product but used a very unfitting title. I tweeted
and wrote to them but didn't receive a response until the next day and, if
you're familiar with PH, that is simply too late because my product was
already buried in the previous days posts...and then I was told they couldn't
do anything more to help me. Hope this serves as feedback for the future!

------
drp4929
Congrats! PH is a very good growth hacking case study for entrepreneurs.

------
robbiea
... and just like that everyone all of a sudden hates product hunt on hacker
news. I don't understand most of these comments.

Product Hunt is still very new and we're already talking about how the
algorithm is no good and bad tweeting practices.

Of course other users are going to ask their friends to upvote their
submissions. Of course the founders are going to make sure that quality
products are shown near the top. Of course the founders are going to make sure
that engagement is higher even if that means notifying users via twitter.

Why can't we just say congratulations!? Why do we have to hate so quickly?
Everyone acts like they have been doing this for 10 years and they should have
all this stuff fixed by now.

~~~
minimaxir
_Why can 't we just say congratulations!?_

Because not everything should get a gold star just by existing.

------
riaface
I'm really pleased for Ryan and the PH team - well done!

~~~
rrhoover
Thanks, Ria. I like your hunts and comments. :)

------
krrishd
I love PH, and admittedly use it more than HN (check it every morning, etc),
but I'm curious to see how it can be turned into a business. To me it seems
very similar to the idea of something like HN being turned into a business,
which I don't see as a very logical idea.

Either way, I'm looking forward to seeing where YC takes Product Hunt.

------
ghobs91
Congrats Ryan!

------
nickgrosvenor
Awesome

------
jordanbrown
Congrats Ryan and Co!

------
mrmch
What a pleasant surprise :) PH is a great community.

------
dylanlacom
Congrats Ryan! Very excited to see where you take PH!

------
sgdesign
Congratulations! I hope you guys will be able to share some of the advice you
get, could be helpful for Sidebar :)

------
bebbs
Congrats Ryan and co. Really enjoyed the live chat several weeks ago and good
to see things are still going well.

~~~
rrhoover
Thanks, bebbs! Which chat was that?

------
finkin1
Congrats! I've never been able to get my startup featured on PH, but I visit
often and love reading about the other startups. Excited to see where PH goes.

------
architgupta
I don't understand why the top comments are so negative. Product Hunt is an
exceptional startup which has a great fresh perspective for discovering new
products and a community of people around this.

Its early days for Product Hunt and while specific criticism is great (X
should be improved because a, b and c. I think you guys could try m, n or o),
the general whining is in poor form. Almost peanut gallery level. We are
better than this in HN :)

Product Hunt lets builders like us get a few "non-cynical" eyeballs. Look at
the examples he mentions, what's not to love:

<quoting Ryan>

\- Notifyr
([http://www.producthunt.com/posts/notifyr](http://www.producthunt.com/posts/notifyr))
was made by a 17 year old in the Netherlands. It's the 5th most upvoted
product right now

\- Instanerd
([http://www.producthunt.com/posts/instanerd](http://www.producthunt.com/posts/instanerd))
was made by Alex in Skopje, Macedonia as a small side project. It received
over 160 upvotes and ~5x the number of comments than the average submission.

</end quote>

~~~
jp1989
I won't lie - I'm not 100% certain that this can be a massive business - BUT
no one can deny that it brings value to early stage products/co's and will
definitely bring value to the YC portfolio.

In addition, you're right - it really can help shed light on products/teams
that generally wouldn't get the time of day.

Our product was submitted to producthunt
([http://www.producthunt.com/posts/sparta](http://www.producthunt.com/posts/sparta))
, we sat at the #1 position for a day - and it delivered a bunch of great
prospects. We definitely wouldn't have been able to connect with so many
Silicon Valley people so early, had it not been for PH.

Congrats to Ryan and team!

