Every "best tools" list is ranked by something — often money, rarely disclosed. Usurp is that transaction with the price tag left on. One public board. $1 puts your link on it. $1 more than the person above passes them. Pay again with the same URL to raise — you're charged only the difference. What's different: every number is checkable. Bid, clicks sent, and cost-per-click per listing — the last one nobody else publishes. Traffic stats are public too. No accounts, no keys.
Hey Product Hunt 👋
This started as the opposite of what it is now. I spent a week building
multi-tenant "boards as a service" — anyone could run their own leaderboard,
connect their own Stripe, keep every cent. Nice architecture. Nobody needed it.
Then I looked at what actually made money in this category and it wasn't
software, it was a single board somebody paid attention to. So I deleted the
whole multi-tenant layer and shipped one board.
The problem I actually care about: every "best X tools" list is ranked by
something. Sometimes money, sometimes whoever emailed the writer, occasionally
taste. You're almost never told which. Usurp is that same transaction with the
receipt showing.
The rules fit in a tweet:
• $1 puts you on the board
• $1 more than the person above passes them
• pay again with the same URL to raise — charged only the difference
• you hold your spot until someone pays more
Two things I'd point at:
Every number is checkable. Bid, clicks sent, and cost-per-click per listing.
That last one is the one nobody in this category publishes, because it's the
one that tells you whether your bid was worth making. I'd rather you know.
No accounts. No password, no editing key, nothing to lose. Your URL is your
identity — paying for it is the claim on it. I had a whole private-key system
built and threw it out, because asking someone to save a key after they've
already paid you is a bad way to say thank you.
Right now #1 costs $2. That won't survive the morning, which is sort of the
point.
Next.js + SQLite on one small Fly machine, payments through Dodo. Ask me
anything about the ranking maths or the money path — both are simpler than
you'd guess.
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stripping merit makes transaction honest, honesty destroys discovery. if veiwer knows position purely bought they stop looking. what makes top bid worth anything once audience knows nothing on page was earned
stripping merit makes transaction honest, honesty destroys discovery. if veiwer knows position purely bought they stop looking. what makes top bid worth anything once audience knows nothing on page was earned