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As an early fan of ProductHunt I became saddened to watch their community get diluted and become more of a place for "growth hackers" to hang out than people wh

As an early fan of ProductHunt I became saddened to watch their community get diluted and become more of a place for "growth hackers" to hang out than people who actually make things. But I also realize this was because they raised tons of money and was under heavy pressure to get traction at any cost. So I think this can be a good news, now that they can just let go and focus on the startup community instead of artificially trying to grow

visakanv 10y ago
> As an early fan of ProductHunt I became saddened to watch their community get diluted and become more of a place for "growth hackers" to hang out than people who actually make things. This is the inevitable fate of all communities. I've seen it happen so many times and I've seen so many discussions about it over and over again that I've begun to consolidate my thoughts and relevant links about it on this URL: http://visakanv.com/blog/communities http://visakanv.com/blog/communities > So I think this can be a good news, now that they can just let go and focus on the startup community instead of artificially trying to grow I hope so too, but realistically I don't think any community that gets diluted can get un-diluted. Reddit, Quora, HN, whatever the place – one you drive away the quality, it seldom comes back. PH will just have a new set of pressures on them now. I wish them the best, just as I wish any community founder / maintainer the best, because a high-quality community is one of the most precious things on this Earth. Alas... it never lasts.
- devinhelton 10y ago
  > This is the inevitable fate of all communities. I've seen it happen so many times and I've seen so many discussions about it over and over again that I've begun to consolidate my thoughts and relevant links about it on this URL: http://visakanv.com/blog/communities http://visakanv.com/blog/communities And there just went an hour of my time :-) Good collection of posts.
- transposed 10y ago
  Interesting reads, thanks for sharing. I wonder if mimicking any of the time tested, real life, community building techniques would work. Like if you examined religion or the university structure maybe there would be more things you could replicate online. Reddit already has subs where you need to upload pictures of your diploma.
  - brazzledazzle 10y ago
    You could start an internet religion and instead of tithing some percentage of your salary you donate CPU time for Bitcoin mining.
moeamaya 10y ago
The tough thing about running a maker community is makers don't want to sit around all day to browse products and comment. But you know who does? Growth Hackers. I say this coming from my own experience growing a community of hardware hackers who have even less of an inclination to chat since they aren't always in front of a computer.
- visakanv 10y ago
  You just hit on one of the fundamental reasons why all online communities tend towards toxicity – the people who have the most time and energy to invest in discussions (which eventually snowball into flame wars) are the people who aren't actually doing the actual work. These things then feed off of themselves – in a sociopolitical 'guardian' type community (/r/atheism, /r/childfree, etc etc) it ends up becoming highly caustic towards the outgroup with everyone competing for in-group status points, while in a 'trader' type community (/r/entrepreneur, /r/marketing), you end up getting flooded by shysters and self-promoters. The moderates shake their heads and leave, and you're left with the inmates running the asylum.
  - double0jimb0 10y ago
    Interesting analysis, seems to explain my personal observations. Only wrinkle I'd propose: The "moderates", or any of the characters you define, aren't fixed, and personal circumstance often colors which role one plays at any given time.
  - henrygrew 10y ago
    A very interesting point of view, what do you think can be done to counter this outcome.
    - jfktrey 10y ago
      What if you made community contribution a limited resource? Continuing the reddit example. You could limit contribution by three routes: 1) Limiting the number of posts. For example, 3 posts per week, max. 2) Limiting the visibility of posts. The more you post, the less an upvote counts. Effective Upvote Value = 1 / (posts this week) 3) Limiting the visibility of posts based on post quality. The more you post in a week and the lower your per-post average karma, the less an upvote counts. Effective Upvote Value = (per-post average karma) / (posts this week) Just a thought.
ThomPete 10y ago
What on earth would you need funding for when you do a site like Product Hunt? That makes no sense.
- dceddia 10y ago
  Curious about this myself. Marketing? Ads?
  - ThomPete 10y ago
    Well thats the thing though. Angel List got of the ground because it had some solid names behind it, can't remember if Product Hunt is the same. Did he do something before? I understand there can be things like server cost and development etc. and if you want to do it quickly you need to build faster. But it just seems so unnecessary to me.
- michaelbuckbee 10y ago
  If you consider them as they are today (a niche site in the tech space) it 100% doesn't make sense. If you think of it as funding to try and expand the site and topics and community into something much larger it makes considerably more sense.
- Alex3917 10y ago
  > What on earth would you need funding for when you do a site like Product Hunt? Because even though there are 300,000 - 500,000 new consumer products launched in the U.S. each year, 99% are generic commodities like a new kind of 2% milk or whatever. The number of new products that are actually interesting is very small, which means that there is a very high cost of discovering and reaching out to enough of these product makers to make the site viable. C.f. why I shut down my previous startup: https://www.fwdeveryone.com/t/-Gk8HmiRSZ-mrUxE0rH3SQ/deadpooling-launchhear https://www.fwdeveryone.com/t/-Gk8HmiRSZ-mrUxE0rH3SQ/deadpoo... It's definitely possible to do something successful in this space, but not as a bootstrapped startup. The AngelList acquisition makes perfect sense, because they can share the cost of leadgen while creating the opportunity to meet a wide range of founders' needs. There is a big opportunity here if someone is able to come in and execute a rollup and IPO, but those are extremely tricky to pull off.
Cbeck527 10y ago
I agree- I stopped going back after I realized it was a homogeneous group (read: white dudes connected to VCs) patting each other on the back for releasing half-baked MVPs. I was really turned-off by that. That said, I think it's slowly changing for the better (rigging allegations aside) since I last took a look a year or so ago. I received a small amount of traction after submitting a stupid iMessage sticker pack I built. I was still pretty salty when I submitted it, but was curious to see if the exclusivity had loosened up a little bit. It had! As someone who occasionally builds silly apps it's cool to share them with a community of makers, but I don't think PH fits the bill anymore. Maybe the acquisition will allow them to re-focus?
- telemele 10y ago
  "white dudes connected to VCs" It's not about race. It's about class. The "connected" part is what matters, not the "white dude" part. Your average 99%er white dude does not get funded in Silicon Valley. He gets asked where he "summers" and then walks out confused. What matters in Silicon Valley is being wealthy and having attended the right school. Being connected matters more than anything. The only thing that makes it somewhat meritocratic is that real success is undeniable and even unconnected people can find ways to succeed without help.
  - Cbeck527 10y ago
    I see your point, but don't necessarily agree 100%. Regardless, I was calling it as I saw it at the time. Checking out the comment section of a few posts on PH's front page today, it looks like my evaluation still stands. Though my classification may be hyper-specific, my main point is it's a microcosm (stereotype?) of the echo chamber.
  - jondubois 10y ago
    Maybe race and gender play a small part but I agree that it has a lot more to do with class and connections. I don't know what it takes to get into the Silicon Valley upper class, but hard, quality work isn't it. My best guess is that you have to be great at kissing ass. SV hates jerks, but loves hypocrites. It's not about what you are, it's about how you come across (in a very primitive, superficial way).
calchris42 10y ago
Seriously. I've only recently started following Product Hunt, but at least for it's email updates, it seems to heavily focus on companies that are pretty far from "startup". Most recent featured products are from Netflix, Facebook, Instagram, AirBnB, Snapchat. These are hardly young startups in desperate need of attention for product announcements.
tlogan 10y ago
Maybe I'm late in the game but Product Hunt was never about finding some new and useful product I might use or buy. And why would be? They also clearly say: "Discover the latest mobile apps, websites, and technology products that everyone's talking about." The keyword here is "talking about". Now, "growth hackers" ended up believing that being popular on product hunt will get you customers. No - it will not. People who are reading and following Product Hunt are VC - and that is why acquisition by AngelList is an excellent move.
shellehs 10y ago
I look PH as a very good place to promote products, and it's born to promote products. No matter it's a good or bad product, they all don't want to miss a chance to reach their customers. > True users vote for USEFUL and/or LOVELY products for themselves, growth hackers try their best to drive users vote for specific products. I can't see that's good or evil, growth hacking may hurt the community, or may bring a lot of users and traffic in a short period. And I think every community has possibility to become a place for growth hackers if it needs to attract more users and grow bigger. Just like every corner has possibility to become a place for advertisements. If I don't like it, I just ignore it. And that also makes opportunity for competitors or products like ad-block to stand out. Anyway I love PH and really feel sad for the acquisition.
pc86 10y ago
> So I think this can be a good news, now that they can just let go and focus on the startup community instead of artificially trying to grow Well, I've never heard the term "growth hacker" used unironically outside of startups (honestly even SV specifically) so I don't think that's likely. And AngelList needs to recoup their millions somehow. How often is a product acquired and all the investment-round cruft and garbage suddenly disappeared? Doesn't it usually just get worse?

visakanv 10y ago

> As an early fan of ProductHunt I became saddened to watch their community get diluted and become more of a place for "growth hackers" to hang out than people who actually make things. This is the inevitable fate of all communities. I've seen it happen so many times and I've seen so many discussions about it over and over again that I've begun to consolidate my thoughts and relevant links about it on this URL: http://visakanv.com/blog/communities http://visakanv.com/blog/communities > So I think this can be a good news, now that they can just let go and focus on the startup community instead of artificially trying to grow I hope so too, but realistically I don't think any community that gets diluted can get un-diluted. Reddit, Quora, HN, whatever the place – one you drive away the quality, it seldom comes back. PH will just have a new set of pressures on them now. I wish them the best, just as I wish any community founder / maintainer the best, because a high-quality community is one of the most precious things on this Earth. Alas... it never lasts.

devinhelton 10y ago
> This is the inevitable fate of all communities. I've seen it happen so many times and I've seen so many discussions about it over and over again that I've begun to consolidate my thoughts and relevant links about it on this URL: http://visakanv.com/blog/communities http://visakanv.com/blog/communities And there just went an hour of my time :-) Good collection of posts.
transposed 10y ago
Interesting reads, thanks for sharing. I wonder if mimicking any of the time tested, real life, community building techniques would work. Like if you examined religion or the university structure maybe there would be more things you could replicate online. Reddit already has subs where you need to upload pictures of your diploma.
- brazzledazzle 10y ago
  You could start an internet religion and instead of tithing some percentage of your salary you donate CPU time for Bitcoin mining.

moeamaya 10y ago

The tough thing about running a maker community is makers don't want to sit around all day to browse products and comment. But you know who does? Growth Hackers. I say this coming from my own experience growing a community of hardware hackers who have even less of an inclination to chat since they aren't always in front of a computer.

visakanv 10y ago
You just hit on one of the fundamental reasons why all online communities tend towards toxicity – the people who have the most time and energy to invest in discussions (which eventually snowball into flame wars) are the people who aren't actually doing the actual work. These things then feed off of themselves – in a sociopolitical 'guardian' type community (/r/atheism, /r/childfree, etc etc) it ends up becoming highly caustic towards the outgroup with everyone competing for in-group status points, while in a 'trader' type community (/r/entrepreneur, /r/marketing), you end up getting flooded by shysters and self-promoters. The moderates shake their heads and leave, and you're left with the inmates running the asylum.
- double0jimb0 10y ago
  Interesting analysis, seems to explain my personal observations. Only wrinkle I'd propose: The "moderates", or any of the characters you define, aren't fixed, and personal circumstance often colors which role one plays at any given time.
- henrygrew 10y ago
  A very interesting point of view, what do you think can be done to counter this outcome.
  - jfktrey 10y ago
    What if you made community contribution a limited resource? Continuing the reddit example. You could limit contribution by three routes: 1) Limiting the number of posts. For example, 3 posts per week, max. 2) Limiting the visibility of posts. The more you post, the less an upvote counts. Effective Upvote Value = 1 / (posts this week) 3) Limiting the visibility of posts based on post quality. The more you post in a week and the lower your per-post average karma, the less an upvote counts. Effective Upvote Value = (per-post average karma) / (posts this week) Just a thought.

ThomPete 10y ago

What on earth would you need funding for when you do a site like Product Hunt? That makes no sense.

dceddia 10y ago
Curious about this myself. Marketing? Ads?
- ThomPete 10y ago
  Well thats the thing though. Angel List got of the ground because it had some solid names behind it, can't remember if Product Hunt is the same. Did he do something before? I understand there can be things like server cost and development etc. and if you want to do it quickly you need to build faster. But it just seems so unnecessary to me.
michaelbuckbee 10y ago
If you consider them as they are today (a niche site in the tech space) it 100% doesn't make sense. If you think of it as funding to try and expand the site and topics and community into something much larger it makes considerably more sense.
Alex3917 10y ago
> What on earth would you need funding for when you do a site like Product Hunt? Because even though there are 300,000 - 500,000 new consumer products launched in the U.S. each year, 99% are generic commodities like a new kind of 2% milk or whatever. The number of new products that are actually interesting is very small, which means that there is a very high cost of discovering and reaching out to enough of these product makers to make the site viable. C.f. why I shut down my previous startup: https://www.fwdeveryone.com/t/-Gk8HmiRSZ-mrUxE0rH3SQ/deadpooling-launchhear https://www.fwdeveryone.com/t/-Gk8HmiRSZ-mrUxE0rH3SQ/deadpoo... It's definitely possible to do something successful in this space, but not as a bootstrapped startup. The AngelList acquisition makes perfect sense, because they can share the cost of leadgen while creating the opportunity to meet a wide range of founders' needs. There is a big opportunity here if someone is able to come in and execute a rollup and IPO, but those are extremely tricky to pull off.

Cbeck527 10y ago

I agree- I stopped going back after I realized it was a homogeneous group (read: white dudes connected to VCs) patting each other on the back for releasing half-baked MVPs. I was really turned-off by that. That said, I think it's slowly changing for the better (rigging allegations aside) since I last took a look a year or so ago. I received a small amount of traction after submitting a stupid iMessage sticker pack I built. I was still pretty salty when I submitted it, but was curious to see if the exclusivity had loosened up a little bit. It had! As someone who occasionally builds silly apps it's cool to share them with a community of makers, but I don't think PH fits the bill anymore. Maybe the acquisition will allow them to re-focus?

telemele 10y ago
"white dudes connected to VCs" It's not about race. It's about class. The "connected" part is what matters, not the "white dude" part. Your average 99%er white dude does not get funded in Silicon Valley. He gets asked where he "summers" and then walks out confused. What matters in Silicon Valley is being wealthy and having attended the right school. Being connected matters more than anything. The only thing that makes it somewhat meritocratic is that real success is undeniable and even unconnected people can find ways to succeed without help.
- Cbeck527 10y ago
  I see your point, but don't necessarily agree 100%. Regardless, I was calling it as I saw it at the time. Checking out the comment section of a few posts on PH's front page today, it looks like my evaluation still stands. Though my classification may be hyper-specific, my main point is it's a microcosm (stereotype?) of the echo chamber.
- jondubois 10y ago
  Maybe race and gender play a small part but I agree that it has a lot more to do with class and connections. I don't know what it takes to get into the Silicon Valley upper class, but hard, quality work isn't it. My best guess is that you have to be great at kissing ass. SV hates jerks, but loves hypocrites. It's not about what you are, it's about how you come across (in a very primitive, superficial way).

calchris42 10y ago

Seriously. I've only recently started following Product Hunt, but at least for it's email updates, it seems to heavily focus on companies that are pretty far from "startup". Most recent featured products are from Netflix, Facebook, Instagram, AirBnB, Snapchat. These are hardly young startups in desperate need of attention for product announcements.

tlogan 10y ago

Maybe I'm late in the game but Product Hunt was never about finding some new and useful product I might use or buy. And why would be? They also clearly say: "Discover the latest mobile apps, websites, and technology products that everyone's talking about." The keyword here is "talking about". Now, "growth hackers" ended up believing that being popular on product hunt will get you customers. No - it will not. People who are reading and following Product Hunt are VC - and that is why acquisition by AngelList is an excellent move.

shellehs 10y ago

I look PH as a very good place to promote products, and it's born to promote products. No matter it's a good or bad product, they all don't want to miss a chance to reach their customers. > True users vote for USEFUL and/or LOVELY products for themselves, growth hackers try their best to drive users vote for specific products. I can't see that's good or evil, growth hacking may hurt the community, or may bring a lot of users and traffic in a short period. And I think every community has possibility to become a place for growth hackers if it needs to attract more users and grow bigger. Just like every corner has possibility to become a place for advertisements. If I don't like it, I just ignore it. And that also makes opportunity for competitors or products like ad-block to stand out. Anyway I love PH and really feel sad for the acquisition.

pc86 10y ago

> So I think this can be a good news, now that they can just let go and focus on the startup community instead of artificially trying to grow Well, I've never heard the term "growth hacker" used unironically outside of startups (honestly even SV specifically) so I don't think that's likely. And AngelList needs to recoup their millions somehow. How often is a product acquired and all the investment-round cruft and garbage suddenly disappeared? Doesn't it usually just get worse?