What should we build at Product Hunt?

Ryan Hoover
88 replies
Next week most of the Product Hunt team is flying into San Francisco from around the world to plan our roadmap for the second half of 2019. We'd love to hear your ideas. What should we build? These could be completely new products or improvements to existing features. Feel free to get creative. There are no bad ideas. 😉

Replies

Natalia Diacono
@rrhoover little product hunt for smaller communities :) One thing we are actively looking for at 'Station F' is to share products and know what our neighbour is working on, for two reasons, we might need it, we want to help each other grow or we could be a beta tester curator. To build this community is becoming quite challenging when there are 1.000 startups on the same campus, but I believe could be solved if we had the structure of PH, a well organized listing of products and also spaces to have discussions. PH right now is way too big, so if every little hub or rich ecosystem like ours could benefit on a smaller scale, I think we could build many useful communities using pH :) i sent you a DM with this proposal btw.
Ryan Hoover
@nataliad90 great suggestion. What kind of discussions would you expect to see inside something like this?
Natalia Diacono
@rrhoover We would like have this: 1. Products badged as 'Station F made', so each time I use this tag or label I can see all products from 'Station F'. and start using it, testing it, providing useful feedback as a member of this community 2. People with this badge as well, so I can know what's their feedback on the product, get them to be beta testers since they are around the corner, MAYBE i can grab coffee with them later, and perhaps to pre-launch products to only these profiles, before launching on PH. 3. Discussions for 'Station F' makers around other topics, like how we started the product, what tools have been useful for us...We are doing this already but on slack and sometimes gets out of control and is hard to follow :)
Brendan Weinstein
@nataliad90 @rrhoover I see this all the time as there is a product hunt channel in virtually every digital community and slack group i am in. This is to simplify the noise and discuss more intimately with like minded individuals about the amazing products we find on PH. That being said, The PH platform should continue expanding in features and capabilities for users as this effort to create sub-communities only helps to boost the overall efforts and objectives of the Product Hunt team and communities. Not sure how you guys feel, just my 2 cents. Love to hear your thoughts..
Natalia Diacono
@rrhoover If we could have our products listed as 'station f' products and also profiles also with this tag, we are into something nice :)
Ferenc Forgacs
@rrhoover one thing I have in mind for a while now is that it would be great to somehow re-engage with the users who upvoted my product. This would be really useful to notify them about updates, new features. This could be an opt-in feature to avoid notifications spam. This is how I imagine it: - a maker launched on a product (version 1.0) - users liked it, upvoted it - after the upvote, there would be an option to subscribe to future updates related to that product - when a maker rolls out a new feature, she/he can attach a changelog to the product - this will trigger a notification to the users who subscribed to the updates Maker goals could be involved in the process if the changelog is automatically generated by completing a goal that was connected to the product. From makers perspective, it's great because they'll have the platform to reach their target audience without building their own database. It's also great for the subscribers because they can follow the evolution of their loved products.
Ryan Hoover
@feriforgacs good thinking! We actually tested a variation of this by surfacing a "subscribe to updates" button on the product page. We a/b tested 3 different variations but the engagement was very low. Less than 10% of the people that upvoted subscribed which resulted in too few a number for most makers to care. I believe there's an opportunity to achieve the goal you're articulating but we need to be thoughtful in how we can achieve this without creating noise.
Mohit M Ghate
@feriforgacs @rrhoover one of the things you guys can do is ask makers to give periodic 2 liner updates to their products and include those updates on the mails that you send out. It'll be super tough to segregate which updates go to whom but that can be built on the backend. Or you could just create a "updates on products" page with "products you upvoted" as a filter.
Marco Pariente-Cohen
@feriforgacs @rrhoover to me "subscribe to updates" seemed too vague and generic such that I thought it was going into an email list that would never get looked at ever again.
Marco Pariente-Cohen
@feriforgacs @rrhoover I'm thinking "Join the Maker [Name/product]'s Updates/beta group (to get in on the ground floor!)" with a mouseover triggered "I want in/let me in!" might garner more attention. It's much more context rich, engaging, and exciting.
Brendan Weinstein
@feriforgacs @rrhoover @markypc3 I think maybe upvote and "follow" could be two different ways to engage with a product. The way you follow a user, following products as well will subscribe to updates and new product releases of that product on PH. Thoughts??
Kevin Guebert
@rrhoover one thing I experienced this past week was going back through all my old upvotes and "rediscovering" products that I had upvoted. I was searching for a product that I knew I upvoted a while back but was having trouble finding it. Along the way while scrolling I kept on opening up older products and checking them out again. I think there could be improvements around this organization of previously upvoted products, resurfacing older products, and searching/filtering products to find ones that I know I upvoted.
Ryan Hoover
@kevinguebert related to this: we have this semi-hidden feature for time traveling through Product Hunt: http://producthunt.com/time-travel
Matthew Smith
@rrhoover *PH API* Selfishly I'd love the ability to have an API to put more specific product comments and ratings for products inside an app like Really Good Emails where we're reviewing email / messaging / marketing specific info. *Founder Guild*. I'd love to be a part of a very specific small group of people that maybe PH curates. I'd pay annual dues to that if it meant a small private network that was exclusive an could help build authentic relationships that help me grow as a founder, businessperson, etc. *Who Uses this Product* I'd like to know what businesses use that product and if possible what their experience is. *Who can help with this product* Some products need expert implementation or management. I'd like to know people who are available for hire in that space.
Ryan Hoover
@whale great suggestions! PH API – We recently updated the API to expose more functionality but you're right, we could expose more to support these use cases and others. Founder Guild – What would you look for in a group like this? I.e. what would you hope to get out of it and how might you interact with these people? Who Uses this Product – We're building something around this now. Stay tuned! ;) Who can help with this product – That's a clever idea. We're building something that touches on this but we might be able to extend our idea to support this use case. Can you give us an example of a situation where you wanted help or to pay someone for support?
Matthew Smith
@rrhoover API : 👍 Founder Guild: * Solicit experience and advise from non crappy people that aren't looking to "network" but to genuinely help each other. Well curated would be key. * Share recommendations for contractors who are not just talented, but good communicators, ethically strong, etc. Help with this product: * Who can help me implement a setup with Vero, or Segment? (Contractor or potential hire) * Who can help our team get setup with Phrasee? (contractor) * Who can teach my team more about how to use Notion to it's best effect and provide us with templates? (Consulting)
Simon Benfeldt Jørgensen
@rrhoover 3 different view possibilities on the homescreen of hunted products. 1) Simple view: (How it is now) (default). 2) Quick view: (with screenshots of all products under the description) for quicker browsing quality of a product. 3) Extended view: Like quickview but with first comment and hunters details for even better quality verification of the product. Have a good Road Map session :)
Ignácio R. Correia
@rrhoover products have different lifecycle stages, is not fair for a beta product be competing with 10 year old upgrades. We all know that every single iPhone is going to be product of the day, we don't need producthunt for that, as your name says, we are hunting for the next big thing :) so my suggestion is to have a beta product of the day, 1rst release product of the day. Another thing is a way to launch upgrades so the community could FOLLOW a product. This will allow to use your platform to engage with possible customers. Adding a change-log to the product would allow to notify the followers. Any of this would be great for ProductHunt. Jobs, events, ask is not the path I would go but I understand why you do it.
Ryan Hoover
@igcorreia good thoughts. We've experimented with some of these ideas already but I believe our execution was off.
Paul Danyliuk
@rrhoover @igcorreia Totally agree. Plus, this should give more incentive for people to actually launch and support their product, not launch and sunset in like a month.
Yoginth
@rrhoover Upload images in makers goals! WIP.chat and Makerlog has it so please implement it!
Ryan Hoover
@yoginth thanks for the rec! What type of images would you upload?
Yoginth
@rrhoover I usually upload Screenshots, Foods etc You can look on Pieter Levels account on WIP.chat https://wip.chat/@levelsio he upload tons of images!
Shreyas Adiyodi
@rrhoover This maybe a bit wacky but ability to buy and sell products?
Ryan Hoover
@shreyasadiyodi1 wacky is good! What type of products are you imagining? Physical products? Software? Comlete businesses?
Tarik Kurspahic
@rrhoover - It seems to me there is still a advantage or disadvantage arising from when one posts something on PH. What about a feature that would hold all posts in a queue and release them at the same time (midnight PT for example) - unless you specify a future launch date in which case midnight PT that day?
Ryan Hoover
@tariktech interesting idea. Our biggest worry with that is people want to discover big product launches when they happen so it might be less ideal to hide those releases for several hours.
Tarik Kurspahic
@rrhoover - great point! How about making an option for those that want to make sure they get full 24hr visibility across the globe for an item they post? That way you can have it both ways...
Ramy
@rrhoover I’m part of a mastermind and it’s been great - more ways to connect with small groups of 4-6 people with similar goals would be really awesome for makers IMO. Hard to pull off, but with tighter groups and strong accountability it could be really helpful
Ryan Hoover
@ramykhuffash I have a few friends that do this too. Do you meet in person? Any ideas on how this might work online among people that aren't physically nearby?
Ramy
@rrhoover We actually meet online on a video call (and have a Slack group for chatting generally). I think what would be helpful in this space would be a facilitator. Interested people sign up with times that would work for them, and the facilitator would make groups of 4-6 based on goals, current progress towards goals, time zones etc. Essentially a match making service of sorts It also counters the trend of joining huge Slack groups to find accountability and meet people with similar interests - they are impossible to keep up with
Sharath Kuruganty
@rrhoover, PH is an amazing platform for featuring products, how about having a platform for makers while they are building the products? Would love to see a video platform for makers who work remotely on a single product! Also how about supporting no-code makers with a platform where they can consume PH data? Thoughts?
Ryan Hoover
@5harath appreciate all your support over the months (years?), Sharath. As a viewer, what would you like to see in video? Any examples of this that have stood out to you?
Sharath Kuruganty
Maybe a combination of loom and periscope 🤔 Also what are your thoughts on the mobile app? Given we all live in mobile first world. I sometimes visit PH to view/upvote/comment on my phone. Thoughts? PS: It's been 2.5 yrs I'm using PH and I learned a ton from you and the community. Thanks for doing this. I'm here as a maker because of the love and support from PH community ❤️❤️❤️
Cindy Au
@rrhoover 1) Riffing on something @anildash shared on twitter this week, but a lot of product/business advice can prove unhelpful (or flat out wrong) if it doesn't share strongly aligned context. Would be cool to have some way to use a series of objective qualities (product type, stage, size, subject matter) with more qualitative goals in order to match founders/makers into smaller, highly-contextual cohorts who can lean on each other for support in a more ongoing way.
Ryan Hoover
@anildash @shinyee_au great point. Whenever I share "advice" I add a giant asterisk as my experience or other factors (like market timing) may not be as relevant to the recipient and what they're trying to do.
Gabriel Olariu
@rrhoover when i joined this community it was because i thought that it was about makers, people making things. But, and maybe i did not spend sufficient time, it seems like most or all people here are writing code. Am I wrong?
Ryan Hoover
@gabriel_olariu1 the community covers all roles from software engineering to design to marketing to product management etc.
Dominic Bouchard
@rrhoover I like the product hunt online coworking space. I think it has lots of potential giving the number of people (like me) who works remotely. A few suggestions (which Im sure you already thought about) -Something better than the chrome plugin. Always having a new tab open isnt the best. -chat room -Profile/photo -Different channel/room to communicate? -capacity to make friends etc. -Ability to share work, give feedback, suggestion ** the pomodoro is cool but I actually only use it to share what I m working on. Its always the first thing I ask in co working space or when I work with other people "what are you working on?"
Ryan Hoover
@dbouchard2 thanks for this. I like your suggestion to create rooms to communicate. We want to explore this further and expand upon Maker Spaces which isn't fully baked right now.
Hoda Mehr
@rrhoover good luck in your roadmap planning. Two things that I would use: 1) Launching podcast and product release updates 2) More analytics or even the possibility of interacting with the people who visited / signed up our product through PH
Ryan Hoover
@hodamehr1 thanks for the recs! How would you prefer to communicate with people that visited/signed up through PH?
Hoda Mehr
@rrhoover I've been thinking about your question here. The best way for us to communicate with people that visited and signed up through PH is a way of re-engagement through PH. For example, if we can send them product release update. Because once you have your product on PH, releasing new updates and notifying people who have upvoted are not easily possible. So, if there was a way to send notification to people who upvoted the product on PH that would be great. Also, if there was a way to know them better. Who are they? How old? What type of interests? What other products they've upvoted on PH... Doesn't have to be an individual level, it can be aggregated info. Currently, it's very hard to qualify PH's traffic. Almost, as if we can create a little community around our product, using the people who are upvoting and signing up via PH. Hope this makes sense. Happy to explore this with you further with you.
Kunal Bhatia
@rrhoover Product Hunt Stories. End feature. *Send suggestion*
Kunal Bhatia
@rrhoover but in all seriousness, a way to do quick videos from makers on launch day to say something personal to everyone on PH. Perhaps it's just a Loom integration, perhaps it's something more.
Ryan Hoover
@kunalslab EVERYONE GETS STORIES! What type of videos would you want to watch?
Kunal Bhatia
@rrhoover something personalized from the makers / team that's launched on the day of. Could be historical footage of them working, day of when going through their launch cadence, etc When I do a launch next month, I'll have an example for you. I probably wouldn't watch stories of other makers outside of a launch context, but certainly from their product page.
Kurosh Hashemi
@rrhoover Some ideas: - I like 'Topics' as a direction to build out further. Include them in search autopopulate in the header. Tighten up the topics a bit (there's a fair amount of duplication). If we're following topics, do something more engaging with that (email/notifications maybe). - Email and/or notifications for related products. For example, if I upvoted Lyft then when someone releases/hunts Uber, let me know because Im likely to want to check it out
Sarun W.
@rrhoover More API endpoints
Ryan Hoover
@sarunw which type of functionality would you want, Sarun?
Sarun W.
@rrhoover My interest is on maker space right now as I building app for that, so Goal: addComment to Goal deleteMutation Filter Goal by isFocus, so we can see others focusing right now update isFocus on Goal Space: join/leave space
Joshua Dance
@rrhoover PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE give users the ability suggest or remove 'related products' Most of the time the suggests are incomplete, or worse, totally inaccurate. And there is no way to suggest or downvote/flag incorrect related products etc.
Brendan Weinstein
@rrhoover @joshdance I'm thinking those types of cosmetic changes can be built as an extension once API is further developed. Just an assumption...
Ryan Hoover
@joshdance good thinking. We haven't done this mainly to avoid people from spamming and self-promoting their own product in the recommendations. There are ways to combat that but requires a bit of thought.