Is Product Hunt losing sight of its Purpose/ Vision?

Product Hunt may be doing an injustice to Startups launching their Product for the first time in the Market, by forcing them to compete against Heavyweights (Repeat launch firms, Established players). This means: Low opportunity for the new product to grab attention & garner market shares. What's the problem? ============= In order for your new Product Launch to garner attention, your Product must get into the "Featured" list, and preferably appear on the Landing page of Product Hunt. There seems to be a couple of "legal" ways to do this: - Engage a Hunter with a huge following, so that the Launch automatically gets seen by all of his/her followers, and thus generates a viral effect. - Build your own following. But this can have a lesser impact, as "newer Users" on Product Hunt seem to bring less weightage for their Upvotes. Another way to generate more interest is: You launch new versions/ variants of your Products periodically, and build up your Followers' pool over a period of time. But that means: New Startups who are launching their Product for the first time do not normally get the required support & Upvotes, and may simply vanish from the public eye. Bottomline: New Startups cannot absolutely bank upon a Product Hunt launch to make a difference. You have to augment with a lot of effort spent on your Teaser campaigns & Follower building. So why am I saying that PH is missing out on its vision/ purpose? ========================================= If I am a large company, then I have the potential to run strong campaigns & build up a strong follower pool. If I have strong influence/ networks, then I can engage a very established Hunter to hunt my Product, and leverage his/her Follower pool to drive up virality. But if I am a new Startup Founder launching my Product for the first time, and I do not have the Follower pool or an established Hunter, then my Product may not generate enough Upvotes to make it to the Featured list, or may get pushed to the lower end of the Featured list. This means: A new Startup Founder is at a disadvantage when attempting to garner attention on Product Hunt. It's rather like a Michael Jordan Basketball team being pitted against a high-school team, or a Mike Tyson bout with a flyweight - There is simply no contest. Can I fake my results on PH? ================== When I launched my "Coming Soon" page on Product Hunt, I received emails from 4 different people offering me "support" to get me to the top 3 slots on Product Hunt. One person promised me: The Product of the day slot for EUR 3500; Second slot for EUR 2500; and the Third slot for EUR 2000. In his email, he assured me that he has enough Followers to make this happen via Upvotes. I obviously did not take advantage of this offer. But I see this as definitely doable - and if so, I can probably make a good income out of this, by simply creating a pool of followers who would Upvote as per my directions. PS: I do not know the PH algorithms in place to catch & prevent this kind of behavior, though. Is there something that can be done to minimize unfair contests? ========================================== The simple answer is: Yes. One way could be to create an "Amateurs league" vs a "Professionals league". - First-time Founders' launch could be in one group; - Repeat launches could form a second group; and - Established companies with Revenues> a Threshold value can form a third group. This can ensure that Founders can fight in their own weight classes, and not get into unfair competition. Is there something that can be done to minimize the potential fraud? ============================================ I am not an expert in this, but I would think that PH could continuously analyze the Upvotes for the Top5 Products every day, examine their IP addresses to check if Upvotes are being submitted by IP Addresses that are in close proximity, and tag these Voters as "Suspicious" if encounter any patterns. Is this viable? I will leave this to PH to decide. Conclusion: Product Hunt is a great tool. However, it is not providing a level competing field for Makers. So it is failing in its purpose/ vision at this time. The possible Fix is fairly straightforward - It may take PH a max of 15 days to implement. At the end of the day, Product Hunt is meant to provide exposure to the "best" new products - not just the products from the biggest players. So I sincerely hope that PH Leadership listens to this feedback. Would love inputs/ feedback from the crowd about this. @ahiggz @rrhoover @stephsmith @blakebemal @alyssaxuu @dennishegstad @arvindkahl @aaronoleary @rosiesherry @abadesi @andrewgazdecki @justinkan @dru_riley @benlu @briannekimmel @rarjunpillai @Sharath @maccaw @sfali789 @caner_lenger @janusz_mirowski @arif_caglar @saasdesigner @ftrdf @ariel_orbach @felix_josemon @suhasmotwani @nqaze @iamarnob6543