[HN Gopher] Analysis of Product Hunt products from 2014 to 2021
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Analysis of Product Hunt products from 2014 to 2021
Author : vednig
Score : 148 points
Date : 2025-01-26 14:59 UTC (4 days ago)
(HTM) web link (components.one)
(TXT) w3m dump (components.one)
| treyfitty wrote:
| I can't scroll on iOS safari.
| fxtentacle wrote:
| Firefox on Linux also doesn't work.
| WJW wrote:
| Yes it does. It just takes a while to load. No idea why this
| is though.
| HatchedLake721 wrote:
| Rule 1 of web development, don't reinvent and mess with
| scrolling.
| ffsm8 wrote:
| And if you really need to, don't anyway.
| vednig wrote:
| iOS Safari seems to be behind in terms of scrollbar styling
| https://caniuse.com/?search=scrollbar
| lobsterthief wrote:
| I would just kill the scrollbar styling if it's breaking the
| site in common browsers. Styling the scrollbar is absolutely
| a nice-to-have--more important to have people able to read
| the content. Otherwise, what's the point?
| 3D30497420 wrote:
| It appears to be using a custom JS-based scrollbar. Which is
| just crazy.
| concerndc1tizen wrote:
| scrolling also broken on firefox.
|
| ridiculous.
| danielbln wrote:
| Firefox on Android - works.
| 3D30497420 wrote:
| The site appears to implement a custom scrollbar with the
| Vuescroll package: https://www.npmjs.com/package/vuescroll
|
| Which is nuts for a simple article page like this (and almost
| any other use case really). Just leave the native components as
| they are, _especially_ scrolling.
| apocalyptic0n3 wrote:
| Firefox on macOS is also completely borked. At least with my
| freescrolling Logitech Master MX 2. I'll scroll and it will
| jump the expected amount, I'll scroll some more and it will
| jump about 4-5x what I expect, and then I'll scroll some more
| and it will go backward in the page. The site is pretty much
| unusable for me.
| WJW wrote:
| > Those who have paid even passing attention to modern
| productivity software will recognize the language and aim of
| Agenda, a project from more than 30 years ago, and therefore the
| broad endeavor of saving time, breaking silos, and endlessly
| iterating on what essentially amounts to the same few products,
| over and over, decade after decade.
|
| Despite the posted title, this article is really about
| productivity apps and the people who use them. For each new app,
| they hope that this one will finally be the one that magically
| makes them "productive" where all the previous ones have failed.
| It then goes on to speculate on why they would do so and
| subsequently veers off into tangents on bullshit jobs, the role
| of middle managers in startups and (through a somewhat tortured
| metaphor of gaming as self-actualization) the role of leisure in
| the modern economy.
|
| Fun article but not really about product hunt after the first few
| paragraphs.
| bloomingkales wrote:
| _Fun article but not really about product hunt after the first
| few paragraphs._
|
| Mind fuck - product hunt is not about product hunting either.
|
| It's spec work. It's not super clear that's what it is, but the
| specs given to you on product hunt are the current zeitgeist.
| Whether you like it or not, you will build your apps for this
| hivemind and not for any real problem space.
| latexr wrote:
| > Whether you like it or not, you will build your apps for
| this hivemind and not for any real problem space.
|
| That assumes the person in question gives two shits about
| Product Hunt. What I learned from that website is that it
| isn't worth it at all. It's procrastination. It's a place
| where wannabe founders gather to look productive and cool.
| People actually brag about being "top hunters". It's cringe
| worthy.
|
| Back in the real world, every time I searched for a piece of
| software and landed on Product Hunt, the thing is already
| dead less than a year after being featured. Successful
| products become so despite Product Hunt, not because of it.
| Time and again I've seen good products which still endure not
| do well on PH, while vapid VC-funded hype is praised.
|
| On the other hand, it has become a great filter. Every time I
| land on a product's website and they brag about being
| "Product of the Day" or whatever, it's usually the only
| outside validation they can point to. It is a fantastic
| indicator that what the creators care about is not aligned
| with my values, and that they're likely to be in it only for
| the profit and will abandon the software at the first sign of
| difficulty.
| mattgreenrocks wrote:
| This is the truth about PH. I've had a blog post living
| rent free in my head for about a year called "Product Hunt
| is not a marketing strategy" that outlines the farce that
| PH is.
|
| They pitch it as being able to get exposure from a large,
| varied audience, except that's not the case at all. Try
| launching something that doesn't have to do with AI. Go
| ahead, try, and let me know how it goes. :)
| minimaxir wrote:
| Product Hunt _was_ relevant...a decade ago.
| heliographe wrote:
| I was skeptical too - friends encouraged me to post my latest
| project there, a panoramic camera app I made entirely for my
| own satisfaction (I certainly used none of the "growth
| hacking" best practices like ads/tracking/upsell popup on
| first launch/excessive subscription that counts on people
| forgetting to turn off auto renew).
|
| I posted it on Product Hunt and got a good response, made it
| to the front page even (link if anyone's curious:
| https://www.producthunt.com/products/65x24#65x24)
|
| I don't doubt that there's a broader metagame that can be
| hacked, but in my limited experience legitimate passion
| projects still have a shot there.
| mbesto wrote:
| I wrote a blog article (now defunct) years ago about this,
| which I called "The cyclical nature of shiny new hammers". This
| was the basic premise. If the workforce is a bunch of
| carpenters and productivity apps are hammers, there will always
| be a subset of carpenters who chase after shiny new hammers. I
| do think there are productivity gains by these new hammers but
| they are marginal at best.
| thaw45645624312 wrote:
| Apologies for the unrelated comment, but as someone with origins
| in Belarus, I find it absolutely gutting and disheartening when
| people see the country's name (in this case, on a chart),
| overlook it, and lump it together with some generalized notion of
| "Ukraine and Russia." These are three distinct cultures, three
| separate nations. Sorry, I have no intention of sparking a debate
| or political argument, just expressing the exasperation.
| jeanlucas wrote:
| The geography data seems very amateur, to be polite.
| BoxFour wrote:
| Slovakia and Estonia too get lumped in with Ukraine and Russia.
|
| I assume they meant "Ukraine and Russia" as a synonym for
| "eastern Europe" as a whole, but it is a bit dismissive.
| askonomm wrote:
| As an Estonian, I especially don't like being called eastern
| europe(ean). We're not, we're northern, according to UN
| geoscheme classification, according to EuroVoc, and I mean
| you can also just read the wikipedia page of a place to know
| where it is at. Furthermore, socially, culturally, and tech
| advancements wise, we're as far as you could possibly be from
| Russia association at this point.
| SiempreViernes wrote:
| Keep it up, if you wave your EuroVoc "NT1 Baltic States"
| designation harder maybe Pohjoismaiden neuvosto will give
| up and let you in. Or maybe not:
| https://satwcomic.com/party-crasher
| rsanek wrote:
| Estonia maybe but I have never seen this for Slovakia
| lm28469 wrote:
| I think you're all reading way too much into it. Russia and
| Ukraine are both in the top of both charts, the others aren't.
|
| Belarus people are fine, the Belarus government has been
| horrible for a long time, it's not that surprising that people
| have a bad opinion of the country. And it doesn't look like
| it's going to get any better:
| https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russias-quiet-...
|
| All the people from Belarus I know fled and will never go back,
| they have parents and friends who've been jailed for facebook
| likes, family members tortured, &c.
| milkshakes wrote:
| > Belarus people are fine, the Belarus government has been
| horrible for a long time, it's not that surprising that
| people have a bad opinion of the country.
|
| I would say the same could be argued for "Russia people" as
| well. They didn't select their dictator either, and have no
| way to remove him.
| Hasu wrote:
| > They didn't select their dictator either, and have no way
| to remove him.
|
| Political power comes from the consent of the ruled. _All_
| polities have a way to remove dictators. It 's not pretty
| and causes a lot of harm, but then so do dictators.
| halfmatthalfcat wrote:
| I mean, they do, but it involves risking your livelihood
| and/or life.
| SiempreViernes wrote:
| There's no "or" there, serious challenge to the state is
| a life threatening endeavour in Russia.
| jeanlucas wrote:
| This went much deeper than anticipated, but I just found it
| curious how there's no data for Brazil? We have a big and active
| community on Product Hunt, it surprised me it wasn't even
| mentioned the rankings.
| welder wrote:
| ProductHunt has over 300k products [0], why only look at 76k
| (25%) of them?
|
| [0] Source https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41708837
| twosdayz wrote:
| "Whether this represents the actual number of products released
| on Product Hunt throughout this period is difficult to
| determine. The products and user data that appears in this
| analysis is based solely on the Product Hunt sitemap, and
| anecdotal experience indicates that not every product gets
| indexed there. But given the general smoothness of the curve,
| and the overall number of the products here (more than 70,000),
| it's as large a sample as one is liable to get."
| zurfer wrote:
| I wonder how they got the data. it says: "I found a publicly
| available list of all ProductHunt users, launches, upvotes, and
| comments."
|
| but perplexity or google search didn't help me
| myth_drannon wrote:
| You can get it from Kaggle, but it looks like the dataset
| there contains only 10K products
| https://www.kaggle.com/datasets/undefinenull/product-hunt
| welder wrote:
| Kaggle dataset with over 300k posts:
|
| https://www.kaggle.com/datasets/alanhamlett/producthunt-
| user...
| rsanek wrote:
| >from 2014 to 2021
| prakhar897 wrote:
| I did similar kind of research for IndieHackers:
| https://www.softwaredesign.ing/blog/real-world-stats-for-boo...
| zurfer wrote:
| that's cool thank you. any chance you will update the github
| repo [1] with the latest info? or any hint, how to run this
| thing myself. :)
|
| [1] https://github.com/prakhar897/indiehacker-scraped
| zurfer wrote:
| Some complementary analysis of the same dataset where I look into
| how the top categories trend over time, what an AI product was
| before 2022 and who the most successful makers are:
|
| https://test.getdot.ai/share/78626655-b57b-4f90-a730-0af80c0...
| bearjaws wrote:
| By ending in 2021 at least he will be missing the ten million
| SaaS starter kits created in 2023-2024.
|
| SaaS starter kits are the MLM of programmers.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| I needed a SaaS starter kit in 2015 and it was nowhere to be
| found! (e.g. the API economy was full of startups that offered
| 99 features I didn't need but didn't offer the 1 feature I
| needed to _have a business_ which is a way to make people pay
| for it)
| varunneal wrote:
| I really like the thesis of this post: that there is a
| fundamental divide in tech that can be summarised as "the gamer"
| and the productivity-maxxing "nihilist". Here's how they describe
| gamers:
|
| > In this sense, the gamer does not only include those who play
| video games (nor does it necessarily include all those who do).
| The gamer is a synecdoche; skateboarders, people who seriously
| play sports, interested music listeners, cinephiles, chess
| players, big wave surfers, and anyone else who orients their
| lives towards experiences that contain fun as a major ingredient
| are all subsumed into the persona. Casually playing a game on a
| subway or after a busy day to unwind doesn't by itself garner the
| gamer moniker, while taking paid vacation time to spend a focused
| 100 hours on Elden Ring does.
|
| I think at the heart of tech, the pure hackers, and basically all
| great things come from these people. They are the people who take
| what they do seriously, and strive for perfection even where it
| is not utilitarian. It's how you avoid slop, and build great
| things...
|
| To some extent I think the labels "gamer" and "nihilist" are
| overly generous. The divide is "people who love the tech" and
| "grifters". Creating video game is the least financially
| profitable venture for an expert software engineer, but (because
| of this) it is the most spiritually fulfilling. Every gamer knows
| the indie project made with love beats the billion dollar AAA
| project 9/10 times.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Many of the grifters don't know they are grifters.
|
| There's a kind of person who dreams of making big money in
| marketing but imagines they can do it with no work. These
| divide into: (a) people who are willing to work on the product
| but not the marketing, and (b) people don't want to work at
| all.
|
| I've found there is no way you can get through to either kind
| of person.
|
| At my undergrad school we had a college radios station KTEK
| that had a reputation for throwing dances that nobody should up
| for. I ran for the "public relations officer" job because I
| wanted my own key so I could open the station up to do my show
| Saturday afternoons.
|
| I would photocopy several hundred posters with 10-20 different
| designs and plaster the campus with them and that got crowds to
| show up. I had a great crew behind me that DJed better than I
| did so people had a good time and they came back and within a
| year we had a great reputation.
|
| Often I've either paid or had a volunteer to do similar work
| and the story is that they think making one poster design and
| sticking up 20 of them is enough: like the customer is seeking
| them out that desperately. Nope, you've got to work really hard
| to be heard in the din and make an impression.
|
| Thus I've got more respect for the grifter who has some hustle
| than the grifter who doesn't.
| TZubiri wrote:
| maybe off topic, but I never got the gist of Product Hunt.
|
| Isn't it solutionism? Who goes in search of products to try out?
|
| I only see the appeal from builders that want inspiration or
| people who want to network, usually neither makes for a good
| user.
|
| Are there people who go to product hunt when they have a problem
| and want a solution? Or people who have excess budget and look
| around to see where they can spend their money?
| PaulHoule wrote:
| People have the delusion that they can launch a product there.
| I mean, you can, but you still have to do the 99% of the work
| it takes to get your product in front of the person who wants
| it.
| havefunbesafe wrote:
| Back before PH was sold, I was on it every day. Between the
| acquisition, crypto project astroturfing, and AI hellscape;
| it's now pretty meaningless.
| brap wrote:
| I used to visit it occasionally, mostly just to catch up on
| what people were building and maybe find something interesting
| every now and then. It was kind of like what StumbleUpon was
| back in the day, just random exploration of things people made.
| I almost never signed up for any product, though.
| RachelF wrote:
| Interesting to see from the graphs that Windows software is the
| fastest falling category.
| garganzol wrote:
| In my opinion, the dominance of post-USSR countries (Ukraine,
| Russia, Belarus) among makers/hunters is not surprising at all,
| and can be explained by a somewhat inflated, romanticized, almost
| evangelistic view on computer technologies in these countries.
|
| The computer technologies and associated market could freely
| develop in those countries after the USSR collapse in 1992. This
| tendency was fueled by the abundance of high quality STEM
| education traditionally available in the region. (Historically,
| STEM education was subsidized by the USSR government and its
| military ambitions.)
|
| I believe that the digital evangelism arose due to exceptional
| freedom of IT companies in those countries. While other, more
| traditional industries have been raided and decimated by their
| own corrupt governments, the IT sector remained out of reach of
| dirty hands.
|
| Those circumstances gave the IT industry in the post-Soviet
| countries a significant advantage. It was a melting pot of new
| ideas, makers, universities, companies and startups.
|
| Since then, however, the dynamics changed due to the Russian-
| Ukrainian conflict. A lot of companies already committed an
| exodus to other jurisdictions, while remaining companies will be
| forced to make it in the future.
| jv22222 wrote:
| The reason people keep switching productivity tools is because
| they're trying to find one that doesn't suck.
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