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AngelList acquires Product Hunt

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Re: AngelList acquires Product Hunt

#161

Post by dang »

stonesvsglass wrote: post #154
dang wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't copy and paste comments that appear elsewhere in the thread (and especially not as an end-run around moderation, if that happens to be why you did it). We have nested threads here so people can reply to what they read directly. The issue isn't brevity, but the toxicity that I described in my comment. I'm not sure I can describe it any better than that.

It was a comment not everybody wants to hear (esp. everybody who got their jobs this way), but that very true accounts how this kind of meetings go -- as you mention Schadenfreude, ask the Germans how the burning of books works, exactly this way

> not everybody wants to hear

No, but you're reading this thread inaccurately, in my view, if you think the rage and snark side is in the minority, let alone so weak that it needs additional protecting.

I appreciate that you're concerned about the integrity of the discourse—we share that—but you don't seem to consider the costs of what I just called the rage and snark side. Those are considerable, and probably the largest risk to this community.

If people start getting rah-rah and kumbaya about everything, I don't think we'll have trouble adapting how we manage this site. The goal is the same either way—substantive discussion. But we humans deceive ourselves into believing that the merely bilious is substantive, when it's not.

Re: AngelList acquires Product Hunt

#162

Post by BinaryIdiot »

Jasber wrote: post #112

Don't understand the negativity. What Ryan and Product Hunt did was incredible. So many people wanted to create an alternative to Hacker News and Reddit for product people. Everyone else failed but they figured it out. That's awesome. Product Hunt personally helped me in my goal of becoming a independent app maker by showcasing my app https://www.producthunt.com/posts/focus . As of tomorrow I'm full-time indie (YES!)…

> Everyone else failed but they figured it out. That's awesome.

Did they? Maybe I don't understand how to use it but after I registered I couldn't comment on _anything_ at all. It seemed I was locked out of anything mildly interesting until I am invited?

I guess Product Hunt just isn't for me but I couldn't figure out how to do anything on that site.

Re: AngelList acquires Product Hunt

#163

Post by stonesvsglass »

dang wrote: post #161
stonesvsglass wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was a comment not everybody wants to hear (esp. everybody who got their jobs this way), but that very true accounts how this kind of meetings go -- as you mention Schadenfreude, ask the Germans how the burning of books works, exactly this way

> not everybody wants to hear No, but you're reading this thread inaccurately, in my view, if you think the rage and snark side is in the minority, let alone so weak that it needs additional protecting. I appreciate that you're concerned about the integrity of the discourse—we share that—but you don't seem to consider the costs of what I just called the rage and snark side. Those are considerable, and probably the la…

I don't support any follow-up comments ala "fuck you" etc. - however, if you consider this sort of "accurate" representation of how things go already as harmful, you know the reason of president-elect Trump.

...just because you don't want to hear it, doesn't mean it does not accurately describe a situation. And the OP was not overly mean - just very concise in describing a typical SV situation.

...I don't have any stakes in convincing you, nevertheless I considered it an overreaction worthwhile to react myself

Re: AngelList acquires Product Hunt

#164

Post by exogeny »

dang wrote: post #136
exogeny wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

His personal characteristics are irrelevant to the economics; he raised money from A-list VCs and failed to do anything notable with it, resulting in a bailout from one of his existing investors and a marginally better employment situation for his staff. Nice guy? Fuck you, go home and play with your kids. You lose that excuse when you raise a Series A.

Personal characteristics may be irrelevant to the economics, but the comments you're responding to weren't about the economics. Please don't get nasty, as in your last paragraph, when commenting here. It literally adds nothing except bile, and we need less of that. Edit: your several comments in this thread smack of a vendetta. Schadenfreude is human, but I think it's fair to ask people not to go hog wild with it.

The profanity is a movie reference, which if you've seen that movie would perfectly illustrate my personal frustration towards the tacit acceptance of incompetence that this thread signifies.

They did very little with an extreme amount of advantages handed to them vis-a-vis A16Z's involvement. It's not intellectually honest to praise them for being able to raise money while simultaneous consider them immune from criticism for failing to do anything notable with that investment.

I staunchly disagree with the general ethos of accepting failure as if the mere effort of trying is somehow notable. Ryan may have made the best decision that was presented to him at the time, but that doesn't invalidate the fact that a whole host of poor preceding decisions placed him into that bind in the first place.

I also find myself extremely skeptical that you'd take the time to so vociferously defend the "tone" of this conversation had PH not been a YC company. Given that a large part of this acquisition looks and smells like a life preserver thrown by one of their existing investors, it makes me cringe even further at PH's inability to harness that emotional capital into anything more substantial and at the amount of which people will ignore the reality to defend their own biased interests.

Re: AngelList acquires Product Hunt

#165

Post by antiviral »

birken wrote: post #92
pdeuchler wrote: post #64

This smells fishy to me. ProductHunt had no hope of ever becoming an actual business with realized monetization, it was a glorified marketing tool built by SV insiders to sell the ventures of their friends, colleagues, and investors. Slimy, but I guess not illegal. I start to draw the line though, when PH raises millions of dollars on XX million valuations (that anyone could easily see they had no chance of ever meet…

1) An investor isn't marking a 1x as a win. Locking up their LP's money for many years to return 1x isn't making anybody happy. 2) AngelList isn't giving PH investors/employees $28M cash, or $20M cash, or whatever the figure is reported as. They are very likely giving them mostly stock, stock in a private company with an unknown valuation. Probably only enough cash to cover the taxes (10-20%). The 20M figure is pulle…

20-20 hindsight works both ways; it's easy to see both obvious failures and successes once we know the results with certainty.

For Google, I don't think it was certain at all that they would succeed and there was a real chance they could have failed. Their first business model was selling their search engine to enterprises via hardware boxes, which grew very haltingly.

In fact it wasn't until Google came across Overture's idea of selling advertising tied to web search results that they found the success they now have, and which they appropriated despite Overture's patent because they were so desperate to find a working business model.

Overture(later acquired by Yahoo) sued Google, and Google had to pay in stock worth hundreds of millions in 2004 (tens of billions now had Yahoo kept them).

So how does this relate to ProductHunt? Google had a real product, knew who their users were and put their experience first. ProductHunt has polluted their site with junk and allowed their voting process to be distorted, making it practically useless to anyone who came there to find great products.

See here: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/10/business/technology-google...

Re: AngelList acquires Product Hunt

#166

Post by mbesto »

gkoberger wrote: post #104
stonesvsglass wrote: post #73

svskeptic 1 hour ago [-] 'Experiment' with no conceivable way of monetization gets 'investment' for some behind-the-scenes, non-investment reasons. Bros funding Bros, and then bro acquiring bro when the first-bro has blown through 7.1M. Its the Silicon Valley version of nepotism. Its all play money, but is only available if you are in the circle. Now that you have an exit to your name, next stop, VC partner. And then…

This comment saddens me. Ryan may be "in the circle" now, but it's not like he had a rich VC uncle. It's not nepotism; he had no connections when he started out. Product Hunt didn't succeed because he's "in the circle", he's "in the circle" because Product Hunt succeeded. Ryan is one of the nicest, most genuine person I've met, and he worked hard to get where he is. He built a great team and a product that people lov…

> Ryan may be "in the circle" now, but it's not like he had a rich VC uncle. It's not nepotism; he had no connections when he started out. Product Hunt didn't succeed because he's "in the circle", he's "in the circle" because Product Hunt succeeded.

No discredit to Ryan, but this isn't necessarily true. Prior to Product Hunt he hustled his way into the circle by interviewing individuals connected in the VC community:

http://ryanhoover.me/post/69599262875/product-hunt-began-as-...

Ash Bhoopathy, entrepreneur-in-action at Sequoia Capital.

partner at Union Square Ventures, Andrew Weissman:

Talton Figgins, product support lead, Disqus:

get a free copy of the upcoming book, Hooked, by habit-design researcher and blogger, Nir Eyal, in collaboration with myself

Sequioa, USV, Disqus, Nir Eyal...most people on HN can't even get any of these people to open an email from them, much less get a response about an app idea.

Re: AngelList acquires Product Hunt

#167

Post by oelmekki »

jscheel wrote: post #3

This acquisition seems to make a lot of sense. Product Hunt is awesome, but it definitely doesn't feel like it's been able to monetize in any meaningful way. The question, of course, is how will Angellist get their $20 mil back?

Actually, I think it makes a lot of sense from a revenue point of view, for AngelList. Their product allows for investors and startups to meet. But where do those startups come from? What is the reception for their product? Are early users excited about it?

Integrating PH to AL could give strong signal to investors, which is especially a big win for investors from syndicates, who may not be as active in their research than bigger investors. Signal processing from PH launches can be automated and give intel to AL investors. PH can be here basically to feed startups for AL users to invest in.

I think an other great addition here would be Betalist. Startups on PH are probably already past seed funding, Betalist would allow AngelList to have a good stream of seeding stage startups, which would allow AL to become a startup pipeline.

Re: AngelList acquires Product Hunt

#168

Post by rei999 »

pdeuchler wrote: post #64

This smells fishy to me. ProductHunt had no hope of ever becoming an actual business with realized monetization, it was a glorified marketing tool built by SV insiders to sell the ventures of their friends, colleagues, and investors. Slimy, but I guess not illegal. I start to draw the line though, when PH raises millions of dollars on XX million valuations (that anyone could easily see they had no chance of ever meet…

I feel that product hunt can easily make money by having sponsored postings. However, that may upset part of the community.

Re: AngelList acquires Product Hunt

#170

Post by seoseokho »

oelmekki wrote: post #167
jscheel wrote: post #3

This acquisition seems to make a lot of sense. Product Hunt is awesome, but it definitely doesn't feel like it's been able to monetize in any meaningful way. The question, of course, is how will Angellist get their $20 mil back?

Actually, I think it makes a lot of sense from a revenue point of view, for AngelList. Their product allows for investors and startups to meet. But where do those startups come from? What is the reception for their product? Are early users excited about it? Integrating PH to AL could give strong signal to investors, which is especially a big win for investors from syndicates, who may not be as active in their researc…

I think Betalist will be next as well. But I'd think AL/PH would try their own BetaList like section.
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