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AngelList acquires Product Hunt

techcrunch.com

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Re: AngelList acquires Product Hunt

#21

Post by wwalser »

minimaxir wrote: post #5

It's common knowledge that Product Hunt is rigged, and they will not heavily punish startups for soliciting upvotes (blatant example: https://twitter.com/minimaxir/status/763156319058616321 ), or even paying for promoted Tweets for their PH submission ( https://twitter.com/minimaxir/status/786286705263251456 ) Relatedly, there is no disclosure when an investor is closely affiliated with a submitted startup (and often…

I don't disagree with your assertions and in fact I think you're pointing out something that's important for people to generally understand. However, It's important to understand that this is more of a _rule_ than an exception. Very similar accusations could be leveled against most anything that's A) popular but not ubiquitous B) vote driven. Hacker News and Reddit have voting rings as well.

I'd go so far as to say that all niche markets have non-disclosed "syndicates" of sorts. Life and wealth seminars, professional conferences, information products people, church leaders, podcasts - all promote other people/products/things similar to themselves who also promote them.

It seem more important to understand this and to take it into consideration when looking at something like AngelList or PH. Advocating that these organizations work against the grain of how all niche markets work seems unlikely to be effective.

Re: AngelList acquires Product Hunt

#22

Post by visakanv »

cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #16

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 arti…

> 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

> 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.

Re: AngelList acquires Product Hunt

#23

Post by AznHisoka »

apadmarao wrote: post #20
ricardonunez wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The acquisition price was around $20 million, according to numerous sources familiar with the terms." http://www.recode.net/2016/12/1/13802154/angellist-product-h...

Can someone explain why this is a reasonable ballpark price? The site is successful, and provides real value to the apps being hunted and the users that discover the apps - but the acquisition price is in acquihire territory.

I thought $20 million was way too high.

Re: AngelList acquires Product Hunt

#24

Post by basch »

aartur wrote: post #17
minimaxir wrote: post #5

It's common knowledge that Product Hunt is rigged, and they will not heavily punish startups for soliciting upvotes (blatant example: https://twitter.com/minimaxir/status/763156319058616321 ), or even paying for promoted Tweets for their PH submission ( https://twitter.com/minimaxir/status/786286705263251456 ) Relatedly, there is no disclosure when an investor is closely affiliated with a submitted startup (and often…

I submitted my startup two days ago by myself, as someone who didn't have any PH "karma", but I somehow was granted permissions for submitting products (probably because I was subscribed to a newsletter for a long time). I asked by email if it's ok if I submit my startup by myself. I was told it's ok and wished good luck. On the launch day my site received literally five visits (in the first hours, probably a few mor…

> They have their rules which are obviously working.

Their comment section doesnt work. It feels like stumbling into North Korea or Stepford, Connecticut along with some Idol worship. I dont know if ive been anywhere moderated that strictly, with such low insight dense comments.

Re: AngelList acquires Product Hunt

#25

Post by moeamaya »

cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #16

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 arti…

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.

Re: AngelList acquires Product Hunt

#26

Post by svskeptic »

'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 ask all the startups pitching, what's unique about you?

Yo!

Re: AngelList acquires Product Hunt

#27

Post by fourstar »

cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #14
minimaxir wrote: post #5

It's common knowledge that Product Hunt is rigged, and they will not heavily punish startups for soliciting upvotes (blatant example: https://twitter.com/minimaxir/status/763156319058616321 ), or even paying for promoted Tweets for their PH submission ( https://twitter.com/minimaxir/status/786286705263251456 ) Relatedly, there is no disclosure when an investor is closely affiliated with a submitted startup (and often…

Dude, it's good that you write these articles and I appreciate them. But for gods sake, let them have today. There are a lot of difficulties in running a community and I'm sure they considered different options but couldn't move forward because they were under too much pressure. They deserve congrats for today.

Let them have what exactly? The whole entire site smelled like a get rich quick scheme from the start for the founder. I tried submitting something only to later come to the same realizations of the vote rigging aforementioned.

Congrats on playing the VC system, I guess.

Re: AngelList acquires Product Hunt

#28

Post by ThomPete »

cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #16

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 arti…

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

Re: AngelList acquires Product Hunt

#29

Post by AndrewKemendo »

ricardonunez wrote: post #15
traviswingo wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do we know the acquisition price?

"The acquisition price was around $20 million, according to numerous sources familiar with the terms." http://www.recode.net/2016/12/1/13802154/angellist-product-h...

Interesting because according to crunchbase their $6M round with a16z was at a $22M Val. With a follow on debt financing, that indicates to me that they might have taken a down acquisition. Of course that was 2+ years ago. So if it was a 20M acquisition that means that the last two years of growth [2] wasn't good enough.

[1] https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/product-hunt#/entity

[2] https://www.google.com/trends/explore?q=product%20hunt

Re: AngelList acquires Product Hunt

#30

Post by basch »

rjain15 wrote: post #8

Why AngelList? Not sure if this is right alignment It doesn't make sense at all. I use Product Hunt to find what is new and awesome product coming up?

I use AngelList for the same purpose.

https://angel.co/markets

https://angel.co/fashion

https://angel.co/fintech-2

https://angel.co/construction

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