Been away for a while, but honestly, have things changed?
Hey everyone,
Historically I founded @Nack AI, And it did quite well. But we eventually packed it up. So, I've been away from product hunt for 3 years since.
Now, I'm working on a new product solo I'm getting ready to get back involved. But one of my big apprehensions was that historically I know a lot of people used to essentially do 100s of "if you like my product, I like yours" kinda behaviour in the background across X (Twitter at the time) and LinkedIn.
That was usually a big driver behind what performed well and what didn't, as opposed to the product itself. I appreciate the game's the game. But honestly, I haven't got time for that. So I just wanted to know if that's still a thing.
I'm also seeing big companies like Anthropic, for example, launch more or less every day. Are indie hackers and solo founders and small teams still able to compete in this kind of market on this kinda platform?
Replies
I’ve noticed the same concern, but honestly, I think Product Hunt still rewards clarity and timing more than backchannel trades now .
@new_user___090202674ab6e030a7a9c52 Been watching from the slidelines, and while some “you scratch mine” still exists, I feel it’s less dominant.
@new_user___090202674ab6e030a7a9c52 @shania_jennings i get where you’re coming from because I’ve had the same hesitation. From what I’ve seen recently, there’s still some coordinated engagement, but it’s not as overpowering.
@new_user___090202674ab6e030a7a9c52 @shania_jennings @mathew_chang This is already helpful. Thanks guys. It really is off putting, but I'm actually not sure how they get around it.
When you're saying you don't think it's been as bad, is that just based off feeling or is that because they've implemented anything that objectively makes it better? Arguably it's easier to even get this whole thing botted than it's ever been in a post LLM world.
@rawoyemi Yeah that “you support me I support you” loop still exists to some extent, but it’s not everything anymore
If the product actually hits a real problem and your positioning is clear, you can still get traction without playing that game too hard
Indie founders can still win, just need sharper distribution and a strong angle, not just a good product
@vishal7017 Really useful, just for clarity though, can you win or can you just do well?
I'm wondering the same thing. I launched my first product this week and it got a couple likes, but not as much as I'd hoped. I've never been a fan of the "if you like my product, I like yours" approach. So since it seems like it's not as effective as before, I can appreciate when a lesser known founder is able to rise above the big companies because it shows that their product really is useful.
@joshua_herrera - Honestly, back in the day, I remember whole teams of people literally spending entire days on LinkedIn in people's DMs and Twitter until they got banned. With a team of eight people you could probably hit up about 1000 people before you're banned across all socials. And so even getting a 50% response rate gets you to about your first 500 likes. Just remembering that was how things were is so off-putting, it's unreal. But I'm glad to hear people feel things have changed. Even if it's not necessarily empirical.