I’m new to Product Hunt. So far I love it but…

David Gradon
9 replies
I'm coming up to the end of my first month as a PH community member and so far I've loved it. I have been absolutely blown away by some of the products I’ve seen and have already started using a few. I’ve also been amazed at how friendly and helpful everyone is, and feel like I’m learning every day being part of the community discussions. Here comes the b-word... BUT having spoken to a few people now and trying to connect over that time, I think one of my biggest frustrations with the platform is the lack of any messaging function. Whilst it’s great as a forum, it sometimes can be hard to nurture the connections you make on it, and often you’ll need to reach out via Twitter or Linkedin to properly connect. And even then - when you do come to a launch day, you’ll often need to send around 100s of messages, which is incredibly onerous, particularly alongside the big list of other things you need to do on the day itself. Meanwhile, have also found that the upvoting system for products and discussions, does highly favour those with big existing networks. Whereas those smaller networks sadly tend to drift into obscurity. This can unfortunately mean that as a newcomer, it is very hard to get noticed and sometimes, even just to build those connections in the first place! And so in the last few days I decided to set-up a PH Whatsapp group, to provide a space where people can: 1. Share and receive support, feedback, resource and advice for product launches 2. Get to know each other better, build deeper connections, keep in touch and hopefully foster a stronger sense of community 3. Collaborate on projects and find potential partners for future endeavours 4. Share tools, technologies, and best practices to optimise our products 5. Share and learn from each other's experiences, successes and failures 6. Hopefully share a virtual coffee or two! Really excited to already have 85 members and growing and hoping more are able to join over the weeks and months to come. And so if you'd be interested or know anyone who might benefit from joining our group, please share the following link with them: https://chat.whatsapp.com/FHawvg... Let's support each other and make great things happen with our products! 🙌💡

Replies

Rofy Okyere-Forson
Fair points, David. I am a recent joiner too so I can see what you mean. I joined the group! All the best on your PH journey.
Shubham Pratap Singh
@david_gradon please add your group link in this sheet if you haven't added yet. URL: https://www.producthunt.com/disc... @sandradjajic is it ok to share this??
Maja Perovic Baines
I can't believe I ran into this :). Was just thinking how awesome it would be if we can share some feedback and experience in a WA group. Just joined. We are looking into launching our MVP here in a bit.
David Gradon
@marketrepublic Really glad you found us and are able to join the chat. Look forward to connecting on there!
Rahul
Hello David! I joined the forum a couple of years back to support some friends here, but never really used it on a regular basis. I'm regular here for the past one week, and I can say I share the same thoughts as you. PH has to have some key social media features like messaging for better connections and conversations. I just joined the WhatsApp group you shared, and hoping to meet some great people there. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and encouraging others to engage with one another. It's wonderful to see someone valuing the importance of building a sense of community.
Gianmarco Cavallo
what about making a discord server?