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Suggestions for Product Hunt team — Add yours in the comments!
This week, the Product Hunt team is in-person in Austin!
I’ve been on Product Hunt since October 11, 2016. I also manage Ryan Holiday's r/GrowthHacking subreddit and a few other communities where Product Hunt (PH) is frequently discussed. Since 2023, I’ve hunted over 200 products and helped invite top startups to launch on the platform.
Based on feedback from community members and makers, here are a few suggestions for Product Hunt team to consider:
Launch Reminders
Introduce a feature that sends calendar invites or email notifications 12-24 hours before a launch. This would reduce the chance of accidental launches.
Newsletter Content
The PH newsletter could feature a section highlighting notable discussions, blog posts, or stories, published by the PH community and curated by the editorial team.
Handling Major Tech Launches
PH is primarily a tech community, but when major products like Apple's launch, it often overshadows everything else. Instead of featuring these, perhaps PH could include news about such launches in the newsletter rather than on the platform itself. Or maybe a seperate section for such launches whose makers do not take direct feedback from the PH community.
Reward Engaged Members
Implement a reward system for consistently active members, allowing upvotes to carry more weight based on engagement:
0 Coins: White (1 upvote)
100 Coins: Yellow (2 upvotes)
500 Coins: Bronze (2 upvotes)
1000 Coins: Silver (3 upvotes)
3000 Coins: Gold (3 upvotes)
5000 Coins: Platinum (4 upvotes)
10000 Coins: Star (5 upvotes)
This tiered system would give loyal members more influence on the platform.
Transparency in Featured Section
Recently, there’s been concern about the 'featured' vs. 'all' product sections. Many users are frustrated with the lack of clarity. While I support the need for curated, high-quality launches, more transparency around the selection process would help.
Please read more about it here if you haven't already: https://help.producthunt.com/en/...
I propose that all products meeting the basic guidelines should be listed, and the PH community can vote to determine the top launches.
Support Team Cohesion
At times, there seems to be a disconnect between the moderation, product / tech, and support teams. It's important for the PH team to work more cohesively to assist the support team, as they serve as the critical link between the PH team and the community.
The support team are the true happiness heroes!
Feel free to add your thoughts or additional suggestions in the comments!
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N Firmansyah
I know ProductHunt has been used for product launches for years, but I'm curious: where did you launch? Or did you not?
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agree with each point! featuring criteria should definitely be more transparent 🙏
@kate_ramakaieva @rohanrecommends thank you, Rohan. We just wanted to be heard.
And to make OUR PH better.
It's good to reward engaged member but it should also be based on the quality of their contribution. Just starting a ton of discussions shouldn't necessarily equate to being a valuable member. E.g. "What are your plans this Sunday? What do you eat for breakfast? Monday is coming, how was the weekend?" is really useless content which has nothing to do with launching new tech products. If quality is not a factor, a bot (or human) that posts 5x a day, comments on every launch and upvotes every product is the most valuable member.
@robin_pl @konrad_sx You can earn points by actively contributing across Product Hunt.
Contributing includes: posting products, creating discussions, and engaging in conversations.
You'll gain points when other community members upvote, cheer, or in any way appreciate your contribution.
I want to share some tips our team has learned for those preparing to launch on Product Hunt!
Here are the activities you can do to earn points:
— Try out new products at 12:00 AM PT every day and leave reviews / feedback / comments.
— Post discussions on topics that makers or PH community members can relate to.
— Share my own know-how and leave supportive comments in the discussions sorted by "New."
The important thing is to express sincere support, give advice based on experience, and write questions that you've thought about at least twice.
One upvote may not equal one point in Product Hunt, but it seems to be proportional.
Hope this helps!
@konrad_sx @rohanrecommends while I get the concept of earning points, I'm sort of on the fence about this approach and how it relates to launching new products. If a founder has been working on something valuable it's sort of inefficient for the founder to then start engaging for the sake of engaging in order to earn points and hopefully be more successful in launching your product on this platform. From my pov it seems like PH and members with "successful" launches learned to game the system.
@konrad_sx @rohanrecommends That's right, but reddit's primary focus is not launching new tech products, it's content. PH's mission is different, or at least that's what I thought.
@robin_pl I think PH is inspired by YC launches, HackerNews and Reddit. Most functionalities are similar. They both are communities with their own purposes — you're right! :)
@rohanrecommends would be really great to see all of these suggestions coming to life. The points currently are nothing more than a vanity matrix, tried finding what it does but to no avail. Glad you raised these concernc
@prad_vv Yes, if the points could convert to some advantage on the platform it will also encourage makers to stick around even after their launch day. :)
Thanks for these! Could you share some specific examples of what you mean by this?
“ At times, there seems to be a disconnect between the moderation, product / tech, and support teams. It's important for the PH team to work more cohesively to assist the support team, as they serve as the critical link between the PH team and the community.”
@rajiv_ayyangar Thanks for asking. Sharing a few examples:
Example 1: Recently my PH account had an issue because I have four Twitter accounts. PH team was very kind to offer me to merge all of them into one.
However, the issue also triggered other bugs and it wasn't fixed for two weeks. I made a suggestion and that restored normalcy in a day or two.
Hence I felt if the backend tech team could assist the support team better, it would help them resolve bugs or issues faster.
Example 2: In the past, PH had the wrong map of India on the launch dashboard. I couldn't get it resolved through the support.
I had to engage with the tech team which then asked if I can provide the map to embed. I am not a coder / builder so they figured it themselves and made the required changes in a couple months.
Example 3: I believe the mod team and support team are different or there is an overlap with some folks on support also acting as mod?
If a launch violates guidelines and if they are reported, the support team usually is not able to take a decision since maybe they rely on mod team to investigate? Until then the launch day may be finished.
There are a few more examples but I hope the above helps. Having said that, I appreciate all the support PH offers. :)
Suggestion from my field: Maybe you could consider giving some spotlight to social impact/sustainability products, that strive towards the Sustainable Development Goals, showing the socially responsible and change-making side of PH as a part of ESG/CSR strategy?
Also don't know if it's a bug or something to implement, but I don't get notifications about launches of notified products.
@karl_mechkin I also have a feeling I didn't get notifications about "notified" launches. Anyone else?
I think these are all good ideas!
Especially I like the idea to give upvotes from members with many coins more weight. I also think the range from 1 to 5 is reasonable.
A somewhat similar idea would be to make it possible for people to give more than one upvote to a launch if they think it's exceptional. Maybe up to 3 upvotes. And this should be anonymous (other people only see that you have upvoted, not the number of upvotes).
This would counteract the current problem that a large part of the upvotes are given as a curtesy by people who were contacted by the creators for this purpose, hoping to get support in return. (And I think this is a big problem)
And I agree with all the other people that Transparency in Featured Section is really needed.
@konrad_sx Thanks for your vote of agreement, Konrad. :) I like your suggestion about giving more than one upvote if they think the product is exceptional.
@rohanrecommends Great to hear that! If you like, we can talk about this upvote idea in more detail at some time. Just sent you LinkedIn connect.
I understand your intent here but.....If you add transparency around curation. people start to optimise for that, you get the cobra effect basically. Some member types already carry more weight. But again. it's opaque for a reason. Apples launch doesn't overshadow anything. They barely get into top 10. And never has. At least Ive never seen it. PH isn't immensely profitable. It's popular but monetisation is tricky. as such the support team is what it is. they try their best. Also do remember that the amount of product that comes out now vs the old days. is like 10x. because of AI people are now armed to the teeth with product making tools. As such the level of getting featured will keep rising. And whatever you do, to try and give everyone a chance. it will always have side effects. Just getting featured these days is like a victory in it self.
@sentry_co Thanks for chiming in. Below are my comments:
"If you add transparency around curation. people start to optimise for that, you get the cobra effect basically."
It's absolutely alright even if 20 products launch daily. And if they do optimize, the bright side is it makes quality go up.
"Some member types already carry more weight. But again. it's opaque for a reason."
Yes, but it still doesn't directly reward folks with high kitty points. So makers churn after their launch is done.
Having higher weightage and documenting it transparently helps encourage the members to continue contributing meaningfully.
Also, the Maker Byline (the new feature) should only be available to members after they unlock the gold level.
"Apples launch doesn't overshadow anything. They barely get into top 10. And never has. At least Ive never seen it."
The point is not about what rank these launches achieve. It's about which companies and products are willing to take direct feedback from the PH community.
The premise of the upvoting and commenting system is what products are shaped by community feedback.
Newsletter is the best place to feature the latest tech news.
"PH isn't immensely profitable. It's popular but monetisation is tricky."
Don't want to make any public comments about this.
"as such the support team is what it is. they try their best."
At times, there seems to be a disconnect between the moderation, product / tech, and support teams.
It's important for the PH team to work more cohesively to assist the support team, as they serve as the critical link between the PH team and the community.
The support team are the true happiness heroes!
"Also do remember that the amount of product that comes out now vs the old days. is like 10x. because of AI people are now armed to the teeth with product making tools. As such the level of getting featured will keep rising. And whatever you do, to try and give everyone a chance. it will always have side effects."
Agreed. However, I believe the product professionals understand which products are wrappers and which are deep and meaningful — horizontally or vertically.
@rohanrecommends I understand where your coming from. I guarantee you that the PH team has thought about the pros and cons of how to do things a 100 times over. The PH ethos is that it's not suppose to be rigid. If you apply rigid recuirments for earning points or getting featured etc. Then you quickly get extreme cobra effects. And you'll end up with a lot of bots gaming the system. And all the crap rises to the top. The PH ethos is all about highlighting awesome products, it can be a product someone spent 2 weeks on or 2 years. doesn't matter. If it's a new fresh idea. it should get featured. And some are. A friend of mine got 3rd a few months ago. it was done in 4 hours. I got 5th after 2 weeks of work one time. And 6th for spending a year 😅. The PH ethos should be a bit whimsical, you should be able to just slide in, if something pops. Or trends. Adding rigidity to PH will make it bland and predictable. Also. PH is always changing. Iterating forward, trying what works. As for apple products. They are very important part of the tech sphere. and the comments people make on these launches absolutely gets read by engineers at apple. So they shape product dev 100%. it's just that apples ethos is all about. No comment. Act like high priests. 😸 And btw. The PH team absolutely soak in feedback from its users. They reached out to me and many others about many of the topics mentioned here just a few months ago and we had a talk and discussion. But for every good intention there are side effects. So they thread with caution. And navigate this new AI landscape the best they can with somewhat limited resources / team that they have.
I really agree with you - especially the featured transparency point, for newcomers like me, this would truly be helpful for us to know what is the right thing to do in order to be featured, and it would also help set realistic expectations because we've been here and there doubling efforts but if there is a certain requirements or criteria that must actually be met that we didn't, then it would be all for naught.
Kudos to you for raising this topic! 🙌🏻
PH since you asked - and let me qualify by saying I appreciate the platform you have built but this is really feedback towards getting better - so please take it for what it is.
1. I don’t think a big brand (I classify notion, slack etc as big brands today ) should compete with a completely new product. It’s not fair. If google for eg wants to launch a new product let them launch with the name but not the tag of google. Carrying a halo effect brings assymetry in ranking.
2. Any product launching the second time onwards should be classified differently.
3. Kindly bring accuracy to your bot checks, community guideline checks. I have seen innocuous comments being tagged is “waiting for moderation” and I have no clue why, upvotes being pruned. I have no idea why.
4. Slightly radical thought but maybe consider upvotes only from customers who have atleast tried the product for sometime. Maybe a week. Or maybe give more weightage to the votes of users who have used the product.
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Then there are other niggles but I will just keep it at this for now.
A wizard or task list that can walk us through the steps pre-launch, during launch and post launch would help
@sudha_reddy Have you checked the pre-launch dashboard? It shows the pending items on a checklist. :)
Completely agree with not letting massive tech launches like Apple’s dominate the platform.
Splitting them into their own space or newsletter is a great idea to give indie creators more room to shine.
Rohan you nailed it 😄❤️ that’s all true and important points to grow PH community. I don’t think someone can understand better than yourself.
Couldn't agree more with the point of rewarding engaged users. Definitely worht it.