The market is unfair
The problem
I was inspired to post this after reading https://www.indiehackers.com/post/product-hunt-is-just-a-popularity-contest-change-my-mind-57b7af0b93.
The basic premise is that Product Hunt is unfair. I'd actually expand this further by saying that the market itself is unfair. And this, too, has frustrated me many times in the past.
I'm sure many of us (who've had more failures than successes) should be able to relate to this:
I launch a product. Nobody buys or cares.
Some other person launches the same product a few months later. $1k in MRR within weeks.
Another way to look at this...
Accept that the game is unfair. There's nothing we can change this. Okay, now that that's out of the way, let looks at what options we have.
First, I'm grateful that the option is even there for me to do this whole work-from-home / make-money-on-the-internet thing. Marketplaces (eg. App Store) and discovery places (Product Hunt, Indiehackers, etc) is an alternative to all of us fighting it out on Google/Bing. Yeah, it's not perfect, but we're all better off because they exist.
Second, knowing that exposure on these frequented websites is not guaranteed, my marketing/exposure strategy needs to accommodate for this. I need to brainstorm other ways to distribute my app or product.
Examples include:
- Building up a customer list
- Building credibility
- Working on other channels like direct sales
Fire up that creativity spark going and figure out ways to make it happen.
What's your point, Simon?
Don't get discouraged.
Some other guy will always have it easier (due to connections, starting position, good looks, etc).
The game is tough. There are many more developers now, and on top of that many more no-coders (tips hat to my no-coder colleagues).
This is an industry where there are no set rules (don't let anyone try to tell you "Never do this" or "Only do this"). Experimentation counts, and keep track of your project like you would a science experiment. Doesn't work? Try it another way, but don't give up the process.
Good luck!
Let's look at Product Hunt's premise - They started as a product discovery platform, there's no guarantee that the PH users who are seeing our post actually have the problem we're solving.
They had to make money as a Business, so now they have better features for those who pay.
Much of its user base are entrepreneurs themselves or wannabe entrepreneurs, So that means B2B products have better probability of success as there could be someone who's problem we're addressing. By success, I mean conversion and not upvotes or getting to the product of the day, as those can be achieved by anything from a good cat gif, shiny product or relationship with the 'hunter' to 'If Trump tweets do X'.
PH is one of the main reason, I wanted to create a platform where 'Problems' are the first class citizen, where anyone can post a problem they have however small they have and entrepreneurs can tell them directly that they have a solution for them.
Hence I created needgap - https://needgap.com.
No shiny stuff, No cat gifs, No hunters, Just problems and solutions.
Great post. It feels really understated how damn hard all of this is. Add survivorship bias into the mix and it's really easy to get down on yourself.