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When your dream of being featured on ProductHunt becomes a nightmare

4 points by rafapaez 10y ago

I've been reading a lot of articles about how to get featured properly on ProductHunt and I had big plans for a proper planned submission of my project, which I believe it's a very interesting one for the entrepreneurs community. I know that we only have one shot on Product Hunt so I wanted to be prepared. I have seen many mediocre sites or products to reach more than 1000 votes just because of the hunter and the timing. So I expected mine to reach a decent amount of votes and attention. Unfortunately someone (I believe with the best intention), who is not popular at all in PH, submitted yesterday night my side project, probably the worst time of the week, (http://www.transparentstartups.com/) without notifying me at. In fact when I realised my website was hunted it was too late and lost in the PH secondly list with just 1 vote. In addition, my project's profile (https://www.producthunt.com/tech/transparent-startups) is incomplete and inaccurate. Sad thing is I'm the maker but I don't have access in PH to amend my own startup profile to at least leave it in a decent state and explain what the site is about. I've tried to contact them via email but I haven't receive any reply yet. Right now I feel very disappointed about how ProductHunt works, although I hope the PH team will help me to fix this. As the maker of Transparent Startups I am, I truly believe in transparency and it seems to me there is something not very transparent at PH, I'm afraid. Have you had similar experiences with PH? Is PH shot over for my website?

ftrflyr 10y ago
Sorry you had a less than desirable experience. However, rather than writing this HN post, did you quickly make the changes on your site so it displays the most relevant information you wished would have been displayed on PH? Did you test those changes? Did you harness that PH data that allows you to continue refining what the exact problem it is you are solving for your users? There are two key learnings here: 1. Use this experience as a learning opportunity. If you are pissed because you didn't reach number 1, I think you are thinking about all the wrongs things PH is meant to represent. If anything, PH purposefully kicks your startup into hyperdrive once you are hunted - regardless to you being ready or not. This is a good thing. It means you no longer can afford to drag your feet. 2. Iterate, test, iterate, test. You shouldn't be focused on pushing out the perfect product right out of the gate. I suggest you read a bit about startups here: https://gigster.com/resources/pg-essays?ref=producthunt https://gigster.com/resources/pg-essays?ref=producthunt
- rafapaez 10y ago
  Hey, thanks for your comment. I'm working on improving my site day by day. Thanks for the link, I'll read it all and I'll keep improving my project. However, given the circumstances and how PH works, there is nothing I could change on my site that would change what happened with PH, nothing. Everything that should have done for a proper hunt, was out of my control. I couldn't do anything at all because I was not notified about the submission. I couldn't tell the hunter to not submit just before the weekend when nobody is there to vote. I cannot add nice screenshots on my profile, like most of the good PH profile have, because I don't have access. I cannot add a proper comment explaining what's the project about. I cannot add the correct Tags and remove the SALES one. I cannot even assign myself as the Maker. Come on, is that fair?

4 points by rafapaez 10y ago

ftrflyr 10y ago

Sorry you had a less than desirable experience. However, rather than writing this HN post, did you quickly make the changes on your site so it displays the most relevant information you wished would have been displayed on PH? Did you test those changes? Did you harness that PH data that allows you to continue refining what the exact problem it is you are solving for your users? There are two key learnings here: 1. Use this experience as a learning opportunity. If you are pissed because you didn't reach number 1, I think you are thinking about all the wrongs things PH is meant to represent. If anything, PH purposefully kicks your startup into hyperdrive once you are hunted - regardless to you being ready or not. This is a good thing. It means you no longer can afford to drag your feet. 2. Iterate, test, iterate, test. You shouldn't be focused on pushing out the perfect product right out of the gate. I suggest you read a bit about startups here: https://gigster.com/resources/pg-essays?ref=producthunt https://gigster.com/resources/pg-essays?ref=producthunt

rafapaez 10y ago
Hey, thanks for your comment. I'm working on improving my site day by day. Thanks for the link, I'll read it all and I'll keep improving my project. However, given the circumstances and how PH works, there is nothing I could change on my site that would change what happened with PH, nothing. Everything that should have done for a proper hunt, was out of my control. I couldn't do anything at all because I was not notified about the submission. I couldn't tell the hunter to not submit just before the weekend when nobody is there to vote. I cannot add nice screenshots on my profile, like most of the good PH profile have, because I don't have access. I cannot add a proper comment explaining what's the project about. I cannot add the correct Tags and remove the SALES one. I cannot even assign myself as the Maker. Come on, is that fair?