The cold reality of launching on Product Hunt

Yesterday I got to finally release an app on Product Hunt[0]. As a budding software entrepreneur obsessed with startups, it was a moment I had been looking forward to. I went into the experience pretty naive, thinking there would be strong controls to ensure a level playing field and that attempts to game the platform would be against the TOS.

Immediately I was invited on LinkedIn to join a WhatsApp group of fellow "hunters" (as posters to PH are called). Intrigued I joined only to find that it was an enterprising outfit focussed on promoting your posting as a service.

But what really surprised me was how everyone else posting on PH was quick to take them up on their offer and busy filling in the forms to obtain this help and practically begging to get their post prioritized. As I worked at Reddit (alongside the current CEO of PH), I suspected fowl play and went to look up whether this was allowed and it seems that it is with the only warning that such promoters may use tactics that are against the TOS such as bot farms[1].

I tried reaching out to folks at PH but have as of yet received no reply. It seems like this is an accepted state of affairs which seems like a shame to me because the premise of PH is such a good one that I feel the web needs a non gamified alternative.

Ultimately, I'm proud of my meager 50 votes as at least they were real.

[0] https://www.producthunt.com/posts/summer-ai

[1] https://www.producthunt.com/launch/before-launch#hunters:-do-you-need-one?