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Comment by Jasber | Hacker News Reader

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!) and I proudly display my Product Hunt badge on my app's page https://heyfocus.com/. I didn't have any connections there—I just made a product people liked.

And AngelList seems like a great fit. It looks like they're building a crowd-funding platform, and Product Hunt as a marketing/discovery engine makes perfect sense. In that context, Product Hunt is worth a bit of money.

This seems like a great outcome. Congrats!

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I don't mean to sound mean spirited, but I know I am about to.

Your post is an example of what frustrates me about Product Hunt (and, at times, HN) - people crowbaring in a reference to their startup/project/idea and throwing in a few links in a very transparent bid to get referral traffic from a popular message board service. On Product Hunt in particular it starts to sound like an echo chamber of people shouting startup names at each other. Worse, it seems like the Product Hunt is the goal rather than the tool - much like TechCrunch back in the day, everyone's success metric is attention from peers rather than customers.

Yea, I agree excessive self-promotion can be bad for a platform.

In this case I included a link because I think it strengthens the argument. Product Hunt was built to help people like me—and it did. Here's the proof!

And I think my post confirms what you're saying—I was able to use Product Hunt as a tool to help reach my goal. I know this isn't always the case, which is why I wanted to give my experience.

Congrats on going full time. Don't sweat the salty comments.

Also don't mean to be a downer or salty, but you might as well have said "The lotto system was built to make people like me wealthy".

Until it is a platform that offers universal opportunity to everybody who builds something, then it is really no more than a pot luck draw that is too reliant on timing, marketing shine, and debasing yourself in front of 'influencers' in the hope that they will give you their royal blessing.

I've self posted, and had other post to PH in the past, with dismal results. Once I had a product of mine 'hunted' on there by a total stranger, which was cool, but I couldn't add anything to the conversation because I was never added as a 'maker' despite several requests via the site and Twitter. I missed that magical 24 hour window and the product listing sank like a stone never to be heard of again (because of their 'no posting repeats' rule).

Don't even get me started on the humiliating experience of having to beg around for an invite in the early days just so I could participate in discussions.

Thats weird, we build something. Someone posted it, and we were made makers pretty quickly.. I guess every time a system fails, it does turn a couple of people away. I would had similar feeling if we were not made makers immediately.

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.

> just excited about something they're creating

Well put. That's the kind we want to encourage, and if someone goes beyond that and overdoes it, it's not hard to take care of.

I might just be that the comments I do read (in relevant contexts or not) stands out for me a lot due to their predictive formula.

Is there some way to search comments for regex? Just for my curiosity.

> Is there some way to search comments for regex?

Not publicly that I know of. Might make a good API project.

> 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.

Question about your Mac app -- these blocker apps seem to be a dime-a-dozen, but I don't understand how people think they're effective. People have so many mobile devices now, just because I block my Macbook doesn't mean I can't waste time on my iPhone/iPad, or use another computer. In the end, it's pure will that is the best means to stop distraction, no app will solve the problem.

Do you have any tips for improving willpower?

Check out the book Willpower Instinct:

https://www.amazon.com/Willpower-Instinct-Self-Control-Works...

I keep all my distractions on devices other than my work machine, out of my reach. Mindlessly slipping into a browser is many times more easier than standing up and going for a "leisure place".

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