Introducing Randomized Leaderboard Day on Product Hunt!
If you’re launching today, the leaderboard is about to get a lot more interesting.
We are running a Randomized Day to give products launching more of an opportunity to get seen!
The Mechanics
To level the playing field, we are cycling the homepage layout throughout the day:
The Loop: This cycle repeats every 30 minutes, all day long.
25 Minutes: The leaderboard will be completely randomized.
5 Minutes: The leaderboard will return to its standard ranked order.
Hidden Points
To keep the focus on the products rather than the "score," all points will be hidden from public view to encourage the community to vote based on merit, not current rank.
The "Double" Boost
Here is the kicker: Every vote cast during a randomized period counts for double. If you are pushing your community to support you, tell them to strike while the points are hidden to maximize their impact.
The Strategy
Your titles and taglines are now your most critical assets. Since every featured launch has a statistical chance to sit at the very top of the page during randomization, you need to ensure your "hook" is sharp enough to catch the attention of the community and visitors!
Launch Tips:
Read through our AMA to learn how products get featured
Review our Product Featuring Guidelines
Watch @rajiv_ayyangar reveal the secret of Taglines
Event Date: Today, March 27th
Replies
Love the UI! How did you handle the scaling? I just launched my mood map today and found that part tricky!
Product Hunt
It's live! What do y'all think?
This makes discovery way more fun + fair + unpredictable. 🎉 Love this experiment @rajiv_ayyangar @gabe!
Should this be the default or say once a week like @amraniyasser suggested? "Shuffle Saturday" or "Randomized Thrusday"? 👀
@rajiv_ayyangar @gabe Also this reminds me of the Golden Kitty Awards algo. The votes used to be hidden forever and makers would keep promoting from start to end of the voting period not knowing which rank it is on. :D
@rajiv_ayyangar @gabe @rohanrecommends Fully agree with you! Hope this becomes a recurring event. Once a week could be great, and maybe give the winner of that day a special reward 😄 !!
Product Hunt
@rajiv_ayyangar @rohanrecommends @amraniyasser taking notes 📝
@rajiv_ayyangar @rohanrecommends @amraniyasser @gabe Would be great to provide a little 'hint' back to launch teams - maybe a range of upvotes throughout the day... So as the day develops you would have an inkling of the exposure you're getting?
First hour you gained between 1 and 25 Upvotes
Hour Six - Your upvotes are currently somewhere in the range of 26 to 75
etc etc
@rajiv_ayyangar I see the same products get listed more than once. The winner from last round (Littlebird) is now back in the 'random' list right after. Bug or feature?
Product Hunt
@maartenrischen hey there! do you mind sharing a bit more what you mean "last round"?
@maartenrischen think I get what you mean.
The idea isn’t that there’s a new “winner” every 25 minutes who’s then excluded from the next round.
It’s more like: there are 25 minutes where votes are hidden and the leaderboard is randomized, then 5 minutes where votes are visible and the standard ranking shows, and this loop keeps running for 24 hours.
At the end of those 24 hours, whoever’s at the top (the top five) are the final winners of Product of the Day, but a product like Littlebird can absolutely appear at the top in multiple 25-minute shuffle periods along the way.
@maartenrischen @rohanrecommends That sounds like such a better way to handle the large amount of products being dropped on a given day. Not going to lie, I was a little disheartened when I saw 730+ products in the list today... Maybe I should have waited to launch at the weekend, because although MaTorii is super sexy with its beautiful UI, it's a mental health product and not some flashy Agentic AI - even though it is partially AI driven.
Tobira.ai
@rajiv_ayyangar Love this experiment! 🔥
It feels much more fair, especially for smaller indie launches that usually get buried. People will now actually look at the product and the tagline instead of just chasing the current score.
Of course, it might feel chaotic for those fighting for #1
DenchClaw
Oh man we launched today...
Is this a good news for us? Let's see 😂
Product Hunt
@kumareth I would say, YES. Good luck!
Littlebird
It's definitely made our launch day a lot more interesting over here at @Littlebird! This has been our official launch week, not just on Product Hunt, so the timing is wild. I need more coffee, but it's honestly been a really fun day 🙌
Product Hunt
@ryanwrites it's been super fun seeing Littlebird pop up across my timeline (mostly X haha). I'm glad you all are enjoying it as well and stoked Product Hunt was part of your launch experience!
Any learnings or insights so far?
P.S. coffee on me whenever you're in Tokyo!
FuseBase
Good luck have fun for those who are launching today!
Exciting day! But Im thinking about weekly ranking - meaning today’s products will get x2 points and much more chances to hit weekly and monthly top?
@kate_ramakaieva thanks Kate - even though its for the internet - I'll take that as a personal good luck with MaTorii!
I love the change! I used to tell people: if you are not in the top after 4 hours, there’s no need to compete, the day is over.
Now I feel that it has gone from:
The competition is decisive in the first hours,
to the first 4 hours are important and then the game is over if you’re not at the top,
to now the game is all day long.
I find that great for competition and support the change.
But I have two personas when I’m not launching:
The Player: Here to discover. I usually visit the second page to see who is launching, and there are always hidden gems on other pages.
The Engineer: I trust the algorithm and am here to check who made it to the top. I want to understand what is new in 10 minutes.
The change makes it fair for the player, but if it’s how I imagine, there is no room anymore for the engineer, or at least not when I want it. I need to arrive on the platform within 5 minutes, which is hard to manage.
Did you consider a switch button instead?
When you arrive, you are a player: it’s randomized, you vote, and your vote counts double.
At any time, you can reveal the order, and from this point onward, your vote counts less.
You can keep switching, but your vote will count less for the rest of the day.
Product Hunt
@bengeekly a while back I made a Product Hunt extension @huntFilter that had a randomized button. Maybe I might update it to mimic this feature or... will this become a more permanent addition hehe
Flowtica Scribe
@gabe Wait, so this experiment actually originated from your side project? That is awesome!
Raising both hands in full support of PH running more experiments like this. It has honestly been SO much fun and dynamic this past month 👀
Jo
I really like this - curious to engage today and see how the actual experience changes. Welcome move to take PH back to it's roots as a place for genuine discovery.
Has felt really rigged of late TBH - after 4 hours only the ones that are hand-picked by you guys (featured) and not the community stand any real chance. And the top 'hunters' have an inside track here too where anything they hunt seems to be auto-featured, regardless of quality.
Product Hunt
@ragsontherocks I hear you, the curation has become even more necessary with the rise of AI development. We try to be as fair as possible. My biggest recommendation is to make sure the launch is very clear on the user experience and how it's different than what's currently on the market.
Curious to hear how you enjoy today's leaderboard!
2 weeks ago with the YC Application Day was very intense!! Do you expect this randomized Thursday to have a similar impact? I like this dynamic where Thursdays start to feel special on ProductHunt 🚀
Are you planning to make some Thursdays special on PH? It could be really interesting to see this become a regular thing.
@amraniyasser Oh, I thought it's a permanent change!
@amraniyasser @bengeekly It's only for today. A special day. That's what they said on X. :)
Product Hunt
@amraniyasser @bengeekly the randomized leaderboard just a fun surprise (for now?)!
Very curious to hear what you both think! The YC was very fun and brought a lot of energy, so we're looking to keep creating moments that can make folks excited to launch.
@gabe I really love this dynamic! These special days on Product Hunt take the competition to another level. Would be great to have something like every first Thursday of the month as a special launch day. maybe even call it “Mystery Thursday” 😄
This is going to get interesting, love the idea!
Oh wow, that's a huge change! For the first 4 hours or for the whole day?
Product Hunt
@bengeekly the whole day!