This week that finally happened. You can launch on Indiehackers.com at https://indiehackers.com/products

Currently it’s free but eventually they will charge $20. We at LPZ normally advocate against paying to launch but this actually is a pretty good value based on Indiehacker’s audience and quantity of traffic.

We’re hoping that Indiehackers can be a viable alternative in the product launching space.

It wasn’t too bad of a submittal process, but I was surprised when I got an email a couple of days later asking for a $300 fee for a lifetime listing. If I had an affiliate project the fee would be $200.

I was even more surprised when I noticed that the email was thanking me for submitting Eurporic.ai, not Keenforms.com. So I decided to follow up with an email asking what their traffic was and how they could justify charging $300.

Next surprise the return email address generated an error “Undelivered mail returned to sender”. There’s a good chance that Cloudfindr.co is a scam. I don’t know if anyone has actually handed over money to be listed but it does appear there are quite a few people starting pay to list directories. LPZ would advice against paying to appear on any directory.

There has been no shortage of content of how Product Hunt is either not worth the trouble, or has changed, or is dead. The incident involving Jason Levin leaving because the current CTO didn’t know who their most popular member was, the layoff of 60% of their staff, the number of paid for services offering to help your startup be the #1 product launch of the day, the number of complaints, all of these and more are symptoms of the same problem.

Product Hunt is not dying, it’s become gentrified.

PH used to be that cool little community where makers launch their side project in hopes of making a few bucks or even quitting their job to do it full time. However as it has grown in size and traffic and visibility, so has it’s value. And that is why it has changed, better or worse, for the the solopreneur or bootstrapped startup.

Product Hunt is just like that hip and cool coffee house that was started in an affordable part of the city. All those community members gathered in that space, which made that space more attractive, which eventually led to others with money want to be in that same space, and in turn increased competition, and made it more crowded, and therefore harder to get attention. The companies that already have attention are relaunching getting a second or third shot at the trough. VC backed companies have the funds to be able to boost their launch on PH to guarantee their launch will be in the top 5.

All of this means its going to be a lot harder for you, the side hustler, the soloprenuer, the full time bootstrapper, to succeed in getting some attention, and hopefully revenue, for your SaaS or service, whatever it is your building.

Hey for the makers out there Product Hunt was great while it lasted. However you want what PH was 3-4 years ago you probably have to go somewhere else. There are lots of places to launch but most of those sites don’t have the community or credibility that PH seems to have lost.

If you want to build the new Product Hunt you can’t just create a site where people can submit their product and launch. You absolutely should not be charging to launch. You might need some sort of chat space, anything that facilitates community. If you get any traction then you should fully expect scammers trying to game your system so they get the most upvotes. It won’t be so easy to just be the new Product Hunt, but I do hope someone tries.

1. Alphaandbetausers – The perfect subreddit to launch on – low expectations, multiple daily posts
2. indiebiz – For startups to offer and share, not a ton of activity but at least you’ll get backlinks
3. Linkbuilding – Another good place to trade links, and no ban on self promotion.
4. Micro Saas – Software as a Service businesses run by a very small team, perfect for launching a SaaS
5. Plugyourproduct – Promotion here is encouraged, but traffic is infrequent
6. Promotereddit – Meant for cross promoting other subreddits, so create a subreddit for your own Saas or App and then share it here
7. RoastMyStartup – Promotion here is encouraged, so perfect for launching here
8. SideProject – Self promotion is encouraged, and is very active
9. Smallbusiness – Promotion here is permitted, traffic is active
10. Software As a Service – Active subreddit where self promotion is allowed, if you are a SaaS then post here
11. Startup – This is a subreddit to bring people together and help startups get help with their business needs
12. Startups – “You MAY share your startup in the Monthly Share Your Startup thread”, very active and sharing is encouraged

You can see more info on all the subreddits that we’ve reviewed at Launch Point Zero here;

https://launchpointzero.com/launchsites?token=reddit

More to come

If you’re thinking of building a Product Hunt clone, here’s a few things you should consider;

• You SHOULD NOT be charging money for companies to submit – if you have a waiting list and want to charge to expedite that’s fair trade, but charging before you’ve even launched looks ridiculous. Product Hunt doesn’t charge, how can anyone justify paying for your service. Don’t be this site Nextool, which hasn’t even launched yet.
• You SHOULD establish a social media presence on every platform available; Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Threads, whatever platform that is available.
• You SHOULD be cross promoting the products being submitted – when you use social media to announce a product launching, that product should be sharing their launch on their own social media, which in turn helps give your site exposure. It’s a no brainer to increase traffic to your own site.
• You SHOULD make your web traffic public – Maker Peak made their traffic public here. You should be too.
• You SHOULD have a blog to give updates on how often you are launching new sites.
• You SHOULD NOT reject submissions without an explanation – if you think a product is not appropriate for your site, that’s fin but for goodness sakes tell the companies that are submitting for consideration why you are not posting their company.

There’s room for competition in the launch game, but since you’re not the lead dog you’re going to have to put in a lot of effort to get noticed. Good luck with whatever you’re building, and reach out to us so we can add you to the Launch Point Zero directory.

It’s going to take some time. It should be ready by December 1, 2023. Here we go.

Some of these are obvious like Product Hunt and BetaList.

However there’s some what appears to be inaccurate data – for example the article lists Product School as a site “Ideal for educational tech products” but the title for the site is “Online Product Management Certification and live training – Product School”. This is not a launch site.

Also it has sites listed that no longer work – Random Startup was listed but returns “This site can’t be reached – Check if there is a typo in www.randomstartup.org.”

Source Forge is great if you are an open source self hosted app, but it’s not ideal for a Software as a Service or Mobile app.

However there are some good sites listed for games. We’re working on adding them.

PROS:

• It’s free to submit
• Submitting is easy
• It’s very consistent posting every day
• It has a newsletter that is sent everyday that shares the same content
• Has decent traffic, estimated 2,100 monthly visitors in October 2023

CONS:

• While its free the waiting list is now over 400 days long. However you can pay to expedite, $19 is not unreasonable.
• The site design is pretty spare, no images or screenshots

I recommend launching here. I’d even consider paying the $19 for expediting the listing since the wait is more than a year.