I put together a digest of the last few months building Ting - the good, the meh, and the lessons I can imagine me wanting to tell future founders so they can dodge the bruises and get to the good stuff quicker...
The good: - Nearly 1,000 users - ~50% MoM growth with no ads. - Added Outlook, Teams, Zoom + multi-calendar. - Launched Memories, micro product moments when the AI remembers small details + you feel seen. - Team is now 2 founders, 2 engineers, AI QA + day-one consultant. Oh, and a baby was born yesterday! - Inbound pilots from a top 10 tech company, top 3 ad network, top 3 bank. - Great investor convos at Web Summit + SF.
For years I worked behind the scenes of digital marketing managing huge ad budgets, scaling brands, and watching the internet slowly fill up with more noise, more banner ads, and more affiliate links than actual value.
Every site is littered with static links. Every search ends with someone leaving the publisher s site. No personalization. No intelligence. Just clutter.
Hey everyone, I ve been working on a little side project that grew into something bigger than I expected, and I d love some honest feedback from this community, especially from anyone who runs a blog, niche site, or publisher-ish business.
I built a tool called Brambles.ai, which is basically an AI-powered affiliate commerce chat that sits on your site and helps readers find products conversationally. Think of it like adding a helpful shopping assistant to your content without adding clutter or messing with your layout.
Two months ago, I'd never heard of Product Hunt. When I told people we were launching @AI Context Flow here, they told me to keep my expectations in check.
Fast forward to today: #1 Product of the Day and #1 Productivity Tool of the Week.
The journey was chaotic, humbling, and honestly surreal. If you'd told me this would happen, I wouldn't have believed you.
To everyone who upvoted, commented, and cheered us on: Thank you. Your support means everything and keeps us building. If you need any tips on how we pulled this off as complete first-timers, ask your specific questions below
After more than 30 years as a PGA Golf Professional, I d taught just about every kind of golfer from beginners to tournament players. But over time, I realized something deeper was missing in the way we train and play.
Golf is not just a technical game. It s a mirror. It shows us how we handle pressure, how we think, and how we connect with ourselves.
Hey Product Hunt I m Derek, a long-time digital marketing strategist turned first-time solo technical founder.
Over the past 15 years, I ve helped major brands generate hundreds of millions in revenue through data, creative, and growth strategy.
But here s the truth, even after years in the ad world, I hate online advertising. The constant tracking, attribution windows, the cluttered banner ads, the broken user experience it s everything I wanted to fix.
My journey in startups began 10 years ago, and I've launched 18 startups, most of which failed. Briefly on why they failed: 1. Contract Online my first startup in 2015, which was supposed to be an online service for remote signing of contracts for any transactions between individuals. A kind of analogue of a secure transaction. For this startup, I even managed to attract a business angel who invested $16,500.
Reason for failure: I had two lawyers on my team who discovered in the process that the legal framework at the time could not provide reliable grounds for protecting our users in remote transactions. The contracts would not have been considered legally signed. 2. Natural Products In 2015-2018, I became very passionate about healthy eating, but in the process, I discovered that products in all chain stores are full of chemicals, and stores with truly natural products are inaccessible to the majority. Hence, the idea emerged to create my own online platform where you could order natural products directly from farmers at affordable prices.
Reason for failure: For several years, I tried to launch this project, even trained as a baker of natural bread and tried to create my own farm, but in the process, I found that few people are willing to pay for truly natural products, even if these products were only 20-30% more expensive than market prices, and not 2-3 times more, as in premium stores. Hence, the market was so small that all my attempts were doomed.
