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AngelList acquires Product Hunt

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Re: AngelList acquires Product Hunt

#61

Post by strong_code »

huac wrote: post #9

“On the plus side we’ll no longer be homeless and we’l [sic] be able to focus on building what we’re building.” Does anyone else feel uncomfortable when SF tech workers, in this case a CEO of an acquired startup, talk about homelessness in this way? Trivializing a very real problem to nothing more than a 'headache' or 'distraction' from the greater goal of, I guess, funding more startups?

I live in the same building as Ryan, and while I do not know his personal financial situation, I know that he isn't scraping the bottom of the barrel in regards to apartment rents. The average rent of a unit in my building is ~$2500.

Re: AngelList acquires Product Hunt

#62

Post by aswerty »

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…

Just to add my 2c.

About a year ago, someone submitted us to PH after I had submitted our site to Show HN. We ended up as the second highest product of the day. I didn't even know we'd been submitted until my co-founder mentioned it (him thinking I had actually been the one behind it). Ultimately we got around 3k to 4k visitors from PH over a space of 3 or 4 days.

So while there may be examples of it being fixed that doesn't mean there isn't significant numbers of startups - with no inside connections - getting a bit limelight from it.

Re: AngelList acquires Product Hunt

#63

Post by birken »

kevando wrote: post #40

It looks like Product Hunt raised about $8 million. Can someone explain how this type of acquisition pays out?

Unless AngelList is teeming in cash, which they probably aren't, the deal is likely either all stock or mostly stock. So imagine AngelList internally values themselves at $500M (a number I just made up), to get to the 20M figure they would be offering ~4% of their stock in exchange for PH. Most likely common stock. Adjust that figure up or down depending on what you think AL thinks they are worth.

Re: AngelList acquires Product Hunt

#64

Post by pdeuchler »

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 meeting), seemingly funnels most of that money into things that simply make promoting other startups more effective, but don't create value or revenue, and then gets bought by another startup who shares multiple investors for (supposedly) something around their ridiculous valuation.

I guess it's probably not outright fraud, but somehow we ended up in a scenario where we have investors shelling out (in some cases paying themselves!!) a (rumored) total of ~28 million dollars for a community website with no real revenue, no actual product, not even any technology that they could theoretically pivot on... it's just a glorified phpBB theme with a relatively small community of fans who just happen to all be in on the take as well. And I'm sure all investors involved get to mark it as a "win" on the books and pad their stats.

Next time Silicon Valley tries to portray itself as a meritocracy I guess we can just point to this...

Re: AngelList acquires Product Hunt

#66

Post by calchris42 »

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…

Seriously. I've only recently started following Product Hunt, but at least for it's email updates, it seems to heavily focus on companies that are pretty far from "startup". Most recent featured products are from Netflix, Facebook, Instagram, AirBnB, Snapchat. These are hardly young startups in desperate need of attention for product announcements.

Re: AngelList acquires Product Hunt

#67

Post by double0jimb0 »

visakanv wrote: post #43
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.

You just hit on one of the fundamental reasons why all online communities tend towards toxicity – the people who have the most time and energy to invest in discussions (which eventually snowball into flame wars) are the people who aren't actually doing the actual work. These things then feed off of themselves – in a sociopolitical 'guardian' type community (/r/atheism, /r/childfree, etc etc) it ends up becoming highl…

Interesting analysis, seems to explain my personal observations.

Only wrinkle I'd propose: The "moderates", or any of the characters you define, aren't fixed, and personal circumstance often colors which role one plays at any given time.

Re: AngelList acquires Product Hunt

#68

Post by L_Rahman »

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…

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.

Re: AngelList acquires Product Hunt

#69

Post by rkho »

Echoing another sentiment in this thread. I was a huge fan of PH during launch and desperately wanted a way into the community to share and discuss things.

Then I ended up building a React Native app that pulled their API, which was featured and gave me access. I had so much fun doing that and thought it was great that I was accepted into the community due to building something.

I can't stress enough how selective I was with the invites I received. I still have one, since I never found the right person to share it with.

Unfortunately, it looks like it doesn't matter. In the past few months, I've noticed a steady decline in the quality of discussion. Lots of comments based on misguided interpretations that could have been avoided if the commenter had bothered to click on the product's link and thoroughly read the landing page. There's way too much noise and it's a shame.

Re: AngelList acquires Product Hunt

#70

Post by henrygrew »

visakanv wrote: post #43
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.

You just hit on one of the fundamental reasons why all online communities tend towards toxicity – the people who have the most time and energy to invest in discussions (which eventually snowball into flame wars) are the people who aren't actually doing the actual work. These things then feed off of themselves – in a sociopolitical 'guardian' type community (/r/atheism, /r/childfree, etc etc) it ends up becoming highl…

A very interesting point of view, what do you think can be done to counter this outcome.
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