On the importance of “media capital”

Sometimes it happens that a superficial product gains more traction than a meticulously labored one.

You launch a product, and boom — a proverbial Pieter Levels launches his pet app, and it easily overshadows yours. And then Elon Musk starts selling flamethrowers and overshadows you both.

Why is that?

The answer is influencer status.
Or how a friend of mine calls it, media capital.

And I bloody love this one.

Media capital is a part of social capital that you earn from media appearances. It is just as much a capital as a regular one. Say you’ve built a product and need to promote it. You can invest material capital (aka money) in ads, special offers etc. Or — if you possess enough media capital (i.e., people are eager to read news from you), you can put that to work instead and get free attention and press. One form of capital substitutes the other.

The good part about media capital is that, unlike money, it doesn’t go away when you use it. Sure, it can expire if you become boring, but it certainly doesn’t drain as fast as money. Also it’s much easier to convert credibility into wealth than the other way around.

The bad part though is that this form of capital is much harder to earn at the start. Our parents might’ve invested some wealth into us, but too few of us are born into famous families where a child gets spotlight merely for existing. For most makers, earning media capital is a grind from square one.

And that’s what I’m trying to do with my participation in Product Hunt Makers Festival this year.

For this Festival, I’ve made and submitted two products, a complex one and an unexpected yet simple one:

• Paul’s Plan — my original habit-building technique with a backstory.
• Tiny chat bot — a simple chat bot engine built with no code.

In total, there are 125 SUBMISSIONS! Obviously, no visitor would go through all of them and upvote thoughtfully. Many makers on Twitter are already asking their followers to upvote their specific product. This is what it’s probably gonna be — another popularity contest where the one with the most followers wins. I don’t have too many followers (or, in other words, I don’t have enough media capital), and solely for that I risk losing.

I don’t really care about the main prize or whatever. It would be nice, but that’s not what I’m after. I’m not even sure if they can ship it here.

All I care is that winning this contest could give me and my app a so much needed media boost.

I don’t think I can win with Paul’s Plan. Not for its technical complexity: many other makers did more complex submissions. And not for its mission either: there’s at least a dozen other goal tracking and habit building apps on the voting list.

Tiny chat bot, however, stands a very good chance. It’s unique. It’s unexpected: making a chat bot engine on Coda is akin to making a chat bot engine in Google Sheets. And it’s simple to grasp and to play with right away.

The full list is here: 👇
https://www.producthunt.com/makers-festival-2019/voting

If you like my submissions, please upvote them there. And if you like someone else’s submissions, go on and upvote them as well — there are some really solid ones!

Thank you!