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Product Hunt Upvotes Are Worthless: Real Customers Aren't There
11–20 of 21 posts
Re: Product Hunt Upvotes Are Worthless: Real Customers Aren't There
#12Product Hunt’s primary audience is product managers. If your tool targets product managers and helps them do product management things, it can do well on product hunt.
There is a slim chance that journalists might pick up on a product that does well there, but relying on that is a wishful thinking PR strategy.
For product managers who spend a lot of time there, it can feel like the center of the universe. The Product Hunt PR campaigns have also tried to spread the impression that it’s the premier place to launch products and attract customers. It’s nothing more than a Product Manager hangout and self-promotion site, though.
Re: Product Hunt Upvotes Are Worthless: Real Customers Aren't There
#13Depends who your 'real customers' are. If you're launching a product where the type of customer is the type of person who would use product hunt, you might get customers. If not, you probably won't.
Promote your product where your target customers are. (Also consider the audience for promotion style. If your doing tech services cold emails or being contacted cold on linkedin is a great way to get on a product blacklist. Never annoy the people who control the spam filters.)
Re: Product Hunt Upvotes Are Worthless: Real Customers Aren't There
#14> Launching there does not make sense anymore. Just curious, but did it ever make sense to launch on Product Hunt? I would assume that the claim that "most users on Product Hunt are developers, designers, or founders" has always been true.
> I would assume that the claim that "most users on Product Hunt are developers, designers, or founders" has always been true.
Their user base is narrower than that, IMO. Actual founders (not just wannabe founders) are too busy to be scrolling Product Hunt all day. If they do, they’re more likely to be there to rip off your idea than pay you for it. Developers prefer sites like HN or engineering blogs.
Product Hunt caters to product managers and designers.
Re: Product Hunt Upvotes Are Worthless: Real Customers Aren't There
#15A founder once shared that launching on producthunt, getting to #1 and acquiring thousands of users ultimately killed his company. He explained that it gave them a false sense of product market fit that they fundraised against to build a bunch a features to solve problems real users never had.
Can confirm that investors do not value product hunt traction. Many see it as a negative signal.
Re: Product Hunt Upvotes Are Worthless: Real Customers Aren't There
#16I would make a minor suggestion to the above:
Instead, you should contact every HR person YOU KNOW on LinkedIn
Start with people you know, and people you've worked with - get your 'bad pitches' out to them, understand the problems they face, and how you can help them.
Then ask them who they can put you in touch with at other companies. Keep this going. Ask friends and family who they can put you in touch with. Early on a warm lead is SO MUCH more important than a cold lead.
Only when you've exhausted this, move on to strangers.
Re: Product Hunt Upvotes Are Worthless: Real Customers Aren't There
#17ProductHunt creates good SEO, allows investors to discover you, and provides good marketing material if you reach a high spot. I don't think you should expect more than that indeed. Also the system is now completely rigged by community of makers that exchange upvotes
To the second point if you look at the comments carefully you do tend to see "clusters" of names that appear awfully suspicious. The most common one I see is a flood of Indian names when an Indian founder posts something. I mean, I'm happy to see communities supporting each other, but there is clearly some gaming of the leaderboards happening.
Re: Product Hunt Upvotes Are Worthless: Real Customers Aren't There
#18It really depends on what you are launching. I still think for certain products (esp if you are targeting builders/founders) you can get customers from there.
That being said, as OP says, an upvote != a customer.
But it's still valuable for marketing. Here's how I think about it:
1. their mailing list which goes out to .. 100s of thousands at the least. Your ICP may not use PH every day but if they work in startups, they are likely to have an account.
2. people google your product and find the product hunt listing. It's good SEO. PH ads actually have done well in getting ICP customers for us.
3. [most important] product hunt is an alternative to a press release. the traditional way to launch something is to pick a day, get press, then amplify the heck out of it across all channels. getting press as a small startup is hard and often outside your control. You can use Product Hunt as your "press release", then tell everyone about your launch-investors, friends, customers, ask them to share on LI/Twitter etc. You get people talking about it. This is where most of the value lives.
what OP is describing in their post is sales which is obviously a more direct way to hit your ICP. but marketing also has its place. especially in a world where your ICP is getting bombarded by sales reps, automated SDRs, etc
Re: Product Hunt Upvotes Are Worthless: Real Customers Aren't There
#19Product Hunt is like open-mic night for PMs - there's no organic audience, just other people pitching products.
If you kill on Product Hunt, all you've learned is that the kinds of people who post products on Product Hunt like your product. That's great if you are selling products specifically to people on Product Hunt, but pretty meaningless in any other scenario.
If you want to build a business NOT aimed at other PMs, get as far away from that social media product hustler scene as you can. Go talk to real buyers and users in your target industry. Pair with an expert in your target industry. Maybe get a job in your target industry and learn how it works from the inside out.
Re: Product Hunt Upvotes Are Worthless: Real Customers Aren't There
#20> Launching there does not make sense anymore. Just curious, but did it ever make sense to launch on Product Hunt? I would assume that the claim that "most users on Product Hunt are developers, designers, or founders" has always been true.
It has. And so it makes sense if they happen to be your target market.