Let me communicate this clearly for the subtype of HN users who are engaged in some startup thing: You won't find actual users for your product on Product Hunt because neither normal people nor most nerds browse product discovery sites. VC's don't care either (except for self-promotion).

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Aurornis 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Product Hunt turned into a meta-game long ago. Getting attention on Product Hunt is more about collecting a metric for your Product Manager resume these days.

There is an anti-pattern in Product Management where some PMs want to build the product launch around making a big splash on Product Hunt. Anyone who knows the drill won’t allow this and will instead do what’s best for finding customers, but I’ve seen some naive startups get pulled into chasing the Product Hunt launch follows by disappointment when the Product Hunt launch signup cohort has the worst retention rate of any of their signups.

	▲	boltzmann-brain 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		what is the play those PMs go for, and how does one recognize it?

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cjs_ac 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

If I have a problem and want to buy a solution to that problem, I'll use a search engine to find what solutions are available. I won't check a list of new solutions to problems on a daily basis in the hope that one day a solution to my problem will be on there.

Product Hunt is the tech founder equivalent of refreshing your social media profile, watching the like count increase on your latest selfie.

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ahmedfromtunis 6 hours ago | parent [-]

I used to enjoy browsing PH and learn about all the cool projects people were building. And there were actually very good ideas -- at least in the early days of the community.

I even used to play a game that I've called PH-roulette: I'd open the top 10 or so products in separate tabs without reading their taglines. I then try to guess what they do based on the copy of landing page.

On most days, only one or 2 products had clear descriptions that are actually useful.

I started playing this game out of boredom but ended up learning a lot about what not to do while building my own landing pages.

	▲	fbxio 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Would love to read more about your insights. Maybe not here bc OT

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aranw 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This gave me one of those surreal "huh" moments I've had in awhile. I've seen loads of apps boasting about being "#1 on Product Hunt" or whatever and I just realised that I've never actually gone to Product Hunt looking for a product to use. Does make you wonder who Product Hunts audience really is and who is doing all the upvoting?

	▲	tdeck 36 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Ever since it began I didn't understand Product Hunt. It's basically a subreddit full of nothing but ads - who would browse that?
	▲	mcintyre1994 4 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		When there were a lot of indiehacker people active on Twitter, a lot of them seemed to talk a lot about using Product Hunt, but I think they were just helping their friends out when one of them posted there.
	▲	turnsout 4 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		The audience is almost literally no one, the people doing the upvoting are doing it for subhuman wages in developing countries, and the only scrap of value created is a "#1 on Product Hunt" badge that doesn't even impress developers anymore, let alone your users. I launched on PH last year and came to the same conclusion as the author of the post. The platform is dead, and deserves to stay dead.

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gitmagic 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This. I got more spam than actual users when I launched on Product Hunt. Pretty sure majority of people on PH are just there to promote their own services and products.

	▲	fakedang 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		[dead]

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piker 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I think that's right in the first order, but the second order is that journalists and gadget enthusiasts do, and they may write about your product. That happened to me with my Show HN post on here.

	▲	allenu 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Agreed. I think it's worth posting on it but the right attitude is just treat it as any other outlet to post your product. Don't fret too much about it or spend too much time prepping and trying to game the timing. When I've posted projects on there, I found so many bots commenting and then later got several emails from people wanting to "help" me with upvoting for a fee, it made me realize how fake it was.

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burnto 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It is the product launch channel of a bygone era.

Seems like these days people try to announce products in communities that might use them.

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AznHisoka 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You wont, at least not directly. But indirectly it can help downstream. I still know investors who browse it every once in awhile looking for interesting products. ChatGPT has also cited a few products in PH lists to me too. So no you wont find users but it aint useless either

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tmaly 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

What do people use now?