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AngelList acquires Product Hunt

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Re: AngelList acquires Product Hunt

#241

Post by brazzledazzle »

ci5er wrote: post #216
moeamaya wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Growth Hackers Based on its usage in these last two comments, I think I must not understand what the phrase "Growth Hacker" means. I thought it was someone who was critically focused on increasing the numerator and decreasing the denominator in various SaaS KPIs. You don't seem to be using it that way. Is this a new job title in the Bay Area? Or, more generally: would you define this phrase for me?

I think they mean the people that are basically marketers/sales people who aren't creators and despite often thinking so aren't visionaries either. The type of person that "just needs someone to do that nerd shit" and they'll turn it into a huge success. Like the two guys that flew from London to show up Justin Kan's house uninvited.

Which isn't to say that can't be successful. With a piece of shit MVP coded by the winning bidder, some slick design, a good sales pitch and a ton of luck you might just get enough money to pay a real programmer enough to develop something that can actually get some serious investor cash which you can use to rewrite it yet again to get a real product that can scale.

Re: AngelList acquires Product Hunt

#242

Post by transposed »

visakanv wrote: post #22
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:…

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.

Re: AngelList acquires Product Hunt

#243

Post by olalonde »

dang wrote: post #238
olalonde wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it off-topic? In my ~7 years on HN, I've only had comments detached as "off-topic" twice, both times in the past week and by you. Is HN just getting more heavy on moderation?

Although your question was well-intentioned, you inadvertently triggered a subthread that had nothing to do with the topic at hand (Product Hunt). Also, the point you were asking for clarification about happened to be made-up bullshit. That term isn't in wide use in SV; rather, the commenter was fabricating things. It would have been better to mark that comment off-topic rather than yours, since the rot started there…

Thanks, dang. I know the moderation was most likely a coincidence and not some kind of personal vendetta or my commenting getting worse, but I couldn't help but wonder.

I believe that SV, with all its flaws, is as close to meritocracy as it gets (after professional sports?) and was really just wondering what "summers" meant.

Re: AngelList acquires Product Hunt

#244

Post by brazzledazzle »

lacampbell wrote: post #224
jondubois wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

I don't know why many people operate under the delusion that the value of their work is the same as how valuable you are perceived. Not to say that there's no correlation, but it's just part of the equation. People pay a premium for doing business with other people that they like. It's perfectly logical - we all want our daily interactions to be pleasant ones, and would much rather work with people we like than peopl…

You're right, it's less about ass kissing and more about cultural fit which is kind of a dog whistle but not exactly since you can hang if you're a "cool" Indian dude who drinks beer and plays ping pong, beer pong or foosball and doesn't smell funny.

Re: AngelList acquires Product Hunt

#245

Post by brazzledazzle »

transposed wrote: post #242
visakanv wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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:…

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.

You could start an internet religion and instead of tithing some percentage of your salary you donate CPU time for Bitcoin mining.

Re: AngelList acquires Product Hunt

#246

Post by brazzledazzle »

dang wrote: post #235
wingerlang wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mention it but I just want to reinforce it. I don't go to PH at all but I see the issue on HN all the time. People writing a comment and suddenly the "at [company], we bla bla..."

Really? I don't see it all the time, and I think a little bit of referring to your own company/startup in relevant contexts is ok. If people overdo it, we ask them to stop (and in extreme cases ban them), so feel free to email hn@ycombinator.com if someone is overdoing it.

It generally annoys me when I see it no matter what site I'm on but you're right, on here it's rare and more importantly this is HN so you should expect a bit here and there. Most of the time these people are just excited about something they're creating.

Re: AngelList acquires Product Hunt

#247

Post by L_Rahman »

dang wrote: post #142
L_Rahman wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That this is the top comment on this post gives me a lot of faith in this community. The general tone here can at times feel like an uncritical adoration of the valley ecosystem. I'm glad that some of us react differently.

> The general tone here can at times feel like an uncritical adoration of the valley ecosystem This is a classic perceptual bias. Everyone feels like HN is full of whatever they identify against, because those are the things we notice the most. Since you identify against "the valley ecosystem", HN seems full of uncritical adoration for it. It's a mirror of your own preferences. There's also the enormous home-team adv…

This is fascinating. I want to turn as many of my biases as possible from unknowns to knowns, so I appreciate you pointing this out.

An exercise I've now decided to undertake is as follows:

Every time I see something that I feel is "uncritical adoration" I will challenge myself to look for evidence for the opposite of that in the same thread. I'll start with HN, but if this works I want to extend that elsewhere.

Re: AngelList acquires Product Hunt

#248

Post by Gammarays »

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 think you're underestimating the level of traffic this "glorified phpBB theme with a relatively small community of fans" receives. Their Alexa rank sits at 3327 which alone means they're receiving tremendous traffic. Not to mention the whole concept of the site is to connect product enthusiasts with products they might end up purchasing. There's actually a fairly significant amount of upside if they can turn PH into a sales platform and take a commission.

Re: AngelList acquires Product Hunt

#249

Post by wwalser »

exogeny wrote: post #105
wwalser wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The price is going to be some multiple on their revenue, I'd guess somewhere in the 4-6x range. $20MM is enough to get investors ($7MM invested) off your back and let the acquisition go forward and there is plenty of opportunity for back-end deals where key players have an earn out not represented by the acquisition price.

It's absurd that you think PH was doing anywhere close to that revenue. The sale price to me is baffling, even if it was stock. You're not buying revenue, you're not buying valuable technology IP, and you're sure as hell not buying a world-class team that innovated and built some rocketship product. So how do you explain it? Maybe the fact that it was bought by one of their investors is a start..

Is it crazy to think that a website with 2.8MM uniques/month could make could make $280,000/month? I honestly don't know the numbers for a media companies, referral programs or direct resellers.

There's also some obvious alignment between the two companies so maybe it was a much larger multiple than I would have expected. The team absolutely managed to build a product that has captured the attention (in many cases daily attention) of the type of people that AngelList wants.

Re: AngelList acquires Product Hunt

#250

Post by mighty_atomic_c »

moeamaya wrote: post #25
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.

I'm unfamiliar with the term "growth hacker". I get the impression that it means marketing and sales. What I've read so far seems to indicate that, us that an inaccurate impression?
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