The market has never been this crowded. AI has made it possible to go from idea to shipped product in days which means Product Hunt is now flooded with launches every single week. More products, more noise, more competition for the same front page.

So I've been thinking about this a lot: what actually separates the products that make it to the top from the ones that quietly disappear by noon?

From where I sit as a builder, here's what I genuinely believe matters:

Most people are using AI wrong and I was one of them.

For the first year, I used AI like a fancy Google. "Write me a product description." "Summarize this." "Give me 10 ideas for X." Useful? Sure. Transformative? Not really.