Why are so many products I see here not Innovating?
Jasper Ruijs
8 replies
I have been active in this community for a while.
But I noticed this pattern of like trading where people interact with each other first on Producthunt, and then the conversation is moved to Linkedin or Twitter.
When something is launched, they ask me to go to their page and expect me to click this upvote button, saying I will do the same for you.
And then I see these products of the day with 900 or more likes, of which most upvotes are these so-called favor people.
The worst thing about this is that those makes feel like they are doing something great, but it is all vanity metrics.
To me, this pollutes the platform.
I am here to discover valuable tools, not a better version of A or B.
Replies
Silvi Hambardzumyan@silvi_hambardzumian
Anania
Because it is way more easy to recreate by just doing 1 thing better than your competitors, than actually thing something innovative.
ProductHunt is just for raising awareness about your product, is about having some traffic and signups. You are absolutely right that upvotes in PH is a vanity metric, but there are some good things too, like awareness as I mentioned before.
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@silvi_hambardzumian
In my opinion, it has nothing to do with complicated or uncomplicated.
We don't teach innovation in schools only problem-solving. Hence we economy based with short term solution, which cause other problems for the next generation.
I love the philosophy of Zippo, which is a gasoline lighter. The founder set out to make the ultimate lighter and 50 years later nobody has improved his design.
Instead we have Google and Apple who launch every year a slightly better version of their products, making it appear as if it 'good' enough to make incremental improvements.
I wasn't a live during Steven Jobs glory years, but I am alive for the rise of Bunq bank.
They understand innovation is giving the 10x experience.
https://www.bunq.com/
thank you for your valuable feedback. Not here to move platforms . . . products and learning about new things is great though
I could be entirely wrong, but this is my perspective:
People in the last 3 years have become too focused on using interesting technologies (AI & Web3) instead of focusing on solving interesting problems.
DIY Startup School for Solopreneurs
@travis_page Ohhh interesting perspective, and probably spot on. Gotta focus on problem not-solving. I just launched DIY Startup School and step 1 is legit just "how to think more and more deeply about problems," and it's surprisingly difficult.
Hi! I have been every day on PH for the past two months. Reading your post about people trading upvotes, reminded me of a video talking about how to get #1 Product of the day on PH.
It was literally said that the only way to get #1 was to engineer the system. I think you clearly explained how it is done.
My issue with this practice is the lack of real interest people may have for the product itself, and would rather BUMP a product as a product of the Day without any real following.
If the makers of this community are so keen to share their journey and their success in terms of numbers, I believe PH should open some new metrics on the success of the product. It would be like the number of people who subscribed to the product, retention rate, etc. I would put those stats under the upvotes and I think it would solve the issue of some of those polluting practices.
If it can't be done for everyone, at least give the option to enable those stats for those who want it. It might reward those who want to be honest and transparent about the legitimacy of their product.
A high number of upvotes might look good but who cares if just 1% of them buy from you? I don't understand the obsession over it even though I have been on PH very recently.
For the "innovative" aspect of it, I don't think PH has a particular focus on it. As far as I could remember, all the product coming out seems to be quite similar indeed. If I am correct, they are mostly about social media, content creation, CRM and AI.
The ones that get my attention are mostly no-codes tools and they aren't yet as powerful as I wish them to be yet. But at least it's one of the very few that offers to help you build something. All the other apps seem to be used for those who already got a fully ongoing and successful business.
But again, at this stage, they should already have what's being already working for them except if they got some department or somebody dedicated to experimenting with different metrics with those new products.
I wish there would be more products that educate, teach and allow growth for those who start from the very bottom. I think most of the problems being encountered come from those who got barely have anything to start their businesses.
That's my take! ;D