Pick of the Week: Product Hunt
I’m one of those sorts who is always looking for the next big thing. I was using Twitter when MSN Messenger was still popular, Facebook while Orkut was still a thing, and Periscope when it had just barely gotten big. These all sound likes traits of the hipster, but it isn’t for the sake of braggadocio — it’s because I like to know what’s hot, what trends are popular and what direction the zeitgeist is moving in.
I recently heard about Product Hunt, a service that’s designed to tell you just that.
The What
Product Hunt is essentially a place to share and find new products. These can be of various types and flavours — Tech, Games, Podcasts, Books, programmer goodies — it’s all here. Users submit a product of their choice with a category, name, URL, and brief description. The idea is to give a quick overview and let the explorer do their own evaluation. Anyone can submit a product, but naturally, there is a system to it all — it’s linear in the same style as Reddit, where users vote on content and the most popular products make it to the top.
Unlike Reddit, however, there is some clever curation. Not everyone is allowed to comment. This is decided by an invite system — the most active contributors such as posters, commenters and voters receive invites to comment. Once you’ve established yourself as a useful member of the community and are overloaded with invites, you can invite people you know to comment too. It’s a way to ensure that only the best content from the most engaged people makes it to the top.
Makers and founders of products are given special tags and can interact with users. As a result, you will often find an interesting back and forth that’s quite illuminating on the creative process, while also helpful for the founders from a feedback perspective. Product Hunt has set up the infrastructure for an excellent community of product lovers and creators.
The Why
Because it’s a great way to stay in touch, and a foot in the door of the creator community.
The How
Product Hunt was formed in November 2013 by Ryan Hoover (his Medium page here!). It had been around for less than a year when Y Combinator decided to back it in July 2014. Later that year, the company received $7.1 million in Series A funding.
In November 2016, the company was acquired by AngelList. It’s had a steady success and growth rate, and has no signs of slowing down.
The Where
You can find Product Hunt at www.producthunt.com
Their iOS app can be found here at https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/product-hunt-best-new-products/id904658671
No Android app yet, I’m afraid, but I’m sure it’ll be coming out soon. Best to jump on the bandwagon now!
Pick of the Week is TCO Lab’s weekly spotlight pick. In it, we choose a product, bit of music, literature, podcast, or anything that catches our fancy, and showcase it. Stay tuned, and we’ll lead you on to some exciting stuff.
Please follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
Comments