Show HN: I built a fair alternative to Product Hunt for indie makers

[lakshikag]

I’m an indie maker, just like many of you. A few months back, I launched a product on one of the big platforms, and... nothing. It got buried under dozens of other launches within hours. All that work, all that excitement is gone in the blink of an eye. No one even saw it.

It stung. I wasn’t mad, well, maybe a little but mostly, I just felt invisible. The truth is, indie makers like me don’t have big teams or budgets to fight for visibility. We rely on genuine support and connections. I couldn’t stop thinking about how many great ideas never get the attention they deserve because they’re overshadowed.

So, I decided to build something different: https://itslaunched.com

Here’s the idea:

• 10 launches per day, max. Limiting the number of daily launches ensures that every product gets its moment in the spotlight.

• 2 votes per user, per day. This isn’t a popularity contest. You only get two votes, so people have to really think about which products they want to support. It’s quality over quantity.

• “Under Radar” feature. This one’s my favorite. If a product doesn’t get much love on its launch day, it gets a second chance to shine the next day. Because timing shouldn’t be the only thing standing between you and success.

There’s more like badges, comments, streaks but the heart of it is simple: a fair shot for indie makers.

I built this because I believe every product deserves to be seen, especially the ones built by solo makers and small teams putting their heart into something they truly care about. And I didn’t build this to compete with Product Hunt. I built it to give indie makers the platform they deserve, one where their creativity truly gets noticed.

If this sounds like something you’d want to check out, I’d love your thoughts. I’m still tweaking and improving it every day based on feedback.

Let me know what you think and if you’ve got a product you’re proud of, I’d love to see it shine.

[abricq]

If you care fairness, I have 1 extra suggestion that you might be interested in.

It was proven by several data-science research that when users have to votes (or give ratings) and if they are able to see the previous result, then the first few votes have an extremely important effect.

For instance here is one stury, very well written article by a famous teacher Robert West, "of sheep and beer" https://dlab.epfl.ch/2017-08-30-of-sheep-and-beer/ which describes this effect on beer-rating sites.

One way to overcome this effect is to hide the votes until enough votes were collected (eg more than 50). Another way is to hide votes until you have voted yourself.

[abcd_f]

You can see a form of this effect on HN itself, in particular in Show HN topics.

First few comments basically set the tone of the discussion and its dynamic. If they are shallow, negative or dismissive, the discussion gets stuck and takes a while to recover even if the submission has a lot of actual merit.

[mettamage]

This is not a study but a reality for me. At one point on HN I wanted to farm for karma points. That period lasted for a few weeks, I wasn't too intense about it, just a fun question I had.

My tactic? Find something that has something like 15 upvotes and you suspect to be rising quick in upvotes. Create the first comment and your best to make an as thoughtful comment as possible, even if you don't know anything about the topic.

Result: I was always within the top 3 getting between 10 to 50 upvotes.

One idea I have (just brainstorming) force users to make a vote first of 10 random products and only after they see the results.

It could probably use some UX tweaking since forcing someone to vote isn't quite nice, but at least it takes care of this effect that was described.

[lakshikag]

Thank you for the suggestion. I have implemented something like this but still experimenting with different factors.

[klabb3]

Another related aspect: it’s likely that tech hype sphere will not actually make much of a difference unless you’re selling to those people directly. My app Payload got featured in fastcompany, and I thought that was amazing. It drove traffic to the website and I was just waiting for the users… that didn’t come. And then a few days later back to normal.

On the other hand, the less prestigious tech blogs for regular people (think PC magazines) were much better at driving both real users and also traffic.

Anyway, the point is that your customers might not be on product hunt checking out the coolest newest hypiest products. In fact, it’s very unlikely they are. Just a reminder to not take these games so seriously.

[amne]

Isn't producthunt (and similar) aimed at VCs fishing for unicorns? The idea being that they'll know to then market your product where it belongs so they can grow it and make their billion. If that's not it, then vcfish.com is $12/year and available

[havefunbesafe]

I really wish Ryan Hoover would take back the integrity of Product Hunt. It's such an amazing product with such currently painful execution, assumingly in the name of site traffic traded for ad dollars.

I truly think that the conversion rate for advertisers on PH would go UP if the quality of the site (moderated posts, comments, bot traffic) did the same.

[jfactorial]

I'm consistently baffled by the rarity of a product owner improving their bottom line by simply improving their users' experience.

[ProofHouse]

I left the site even before Ryan left, but yeah, he was the best person to steward it at forward. It’s been junk for a very long time.

[gloosx]

Looking cool! I have two questions though:

>10 launches per day, max.

What if your launch queue will be filling at a much faster rate aka backpressure issue? E.g what if this went viral and you get 1000 new projects per day, any new launch is scheduled after three months then?

>2 votes per user, per day.

Any idea how to prevent someone from creating 10 fake accounts and making it 20 votes per day? I'm sure any entrepreneur will see this opportunity right away if a little cheating means more exposure.

Looks like a good alternative to product hunt, the UI is looking fresh and I like it, however I'm genuinely interested about your thoughts on the problems this model can have at scale.

[lakshikag]

1) If the queue grows significantly, the first-come, first-serve system will still ensure fairness. Makers can plan their launches strategically within a 30-day scheduling window, and I’ll monitor growth closely to adapt if needed.

2) At the moment, I’m testing a few theories to address this and ensure fair play on the platform. I can’t share specifics just yet since these are still in the experimental phase, but I’m keeping this top of mind as the platform evolves.

Appreciate your interest and feedback, thank you!

[airstrike]

This is awesome! Congrats on the metalaunch ;-) I found the site hard to navigate visually as everything was equally prominent (in fact, yesterday's launches pop more than the current ones right now), so I took a stab at a different layout.

Screenshot: https://i.imgur.com/4qoY7o2.png

Code here: https://gist.github.com/airstrike/923a7049d5cde7405e60e99e22...

[lakshikag]

Thank you so much for the feedback and taking the time to create a new layout idea. I truly appreciate it. The goal has always been to make the site intuitive and focused on giving launches their moment to shine. So I will take a closer look at your suggestions to see how can I make it more visually clear.

[pinkmuffinere]

I see a new product-hunt alternative launched every couple months here. Maybe I’m cynical, but I don’t think we’re going to displace product hunt with things like new voting dynamics. They already have the network effects, so I think you’d need to make a relatively large change to stand a real chance.

Edit: Here’s a proposal for a bigger change. do some free advertising for the submitted ideas. Run simple Google/youtube/facebook ads for them, just directing people to their page on your platform. Hopefully this doesn’t burn too much cash, since you’re actually advertising for their page on your platform, so it’s good for you in the end. Perhaps submissions have a small fee in the long-term, to monetize the platform.

[tdeck]

Could somebody explain the appeal of browsing Product Hunt? It seems just like a subreddit where people post nothing but ads for their businesses, and I've always been a bit baffled by it. Sure if I had a SaaS to sell I'd post it there, but why is there an audience for a long list of product ads?

[tasoeur]

Let’s go full meta and build a product hunt… but for product hunt alternatives!

[turnsout]

Maybe the bigger question is whether something like Product Hunt even needs to exist in the ecosystem. I think it had its place circa 2012–2014, but does it have any "real" users anymore? Or is it all founders and growth hackers trying to juice their launch, and an army of dummy accounts from people who sell votes?

[pelagicAustral]

Nice product overall. Not sure anybody pointed out this yet, but you should consider changing spaces for dashes on your slugs, they look better than the coded space (%20) on pages like: https://itslaunched.com/profile/Kazane%20Shimizu

[lakshikag]

Thank you for pointing this out. Will be fixed as soon as possible.

[nbuujocjut]

How would you handle the situation that if this is successful, you’ll get massively more than 10 candidates each day?

[lakshikag]

Great question. Right now, it's first come, first served, and makers can schedule their launches up to 30 days in advance. I don't plan to introduce any paid options to skip the line, it's important to me that it stays fair for everyone.

If it ever gets to a point where demand grows too much, I would explore ways to keep things manageable while still giving every product it's moment to shine. Thanks for brining this up!

[strongpigeon]

Nice work! It looks pretty good, I just might use it soon!

FYI, you seem to have an encoding issue. There is a bunch of `'` in your pages. [0]

[0]: https://itslaunched.com/product/sponsorapp

[lakshikag]

I would love to see your product on the platform when you are ready to launch!

And thanks for catching the encoding issue. I will get that sorted out to make sure everything displays properly. Let me know if there's anything else you spot or any feedback you have. Thanks again for checking it out.

[dalemhurley]

I really like the direction you’re taking. Product Hunt can feel like it’s run more for the benefit of the maintainers than for the community. It’s their service, so fair enough, but it also means users sometimes lose out. And let’s face it—there’s definitely some gaming of the system going on.

Your approach seems promising. Have you considered taking it even further, maybe by making the platform more decentralized or democratized, kind of like a DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization)? That might align the incentives more directly with the indie maker community and help keep everything transparent. In any case, I’m glad to see new ideas that give smaller products and teams a fair shot.

Keep at it!

D

[lakshikag]

Thank you so much for the kind words and encouragement. Product Hunt is a great platform I. Many ways, BUT there is always room for new approaches that put the spotlight back on the community itself.

I love the idea of exploring ways to make the platform more decentralized too. However for now, I'm more focused on keeping things simple and fair while improving based on feedback like yours. Thanks again for sharing your thoughts.

[frotty]

It's all a fine balancing act, sure, but ...

"This isn't a popularity contest... so anyway, here's how voting works" is a bit silly, and right there on the front page is "yesterday's winners" which is more than a bit disingenuous.

What if I vote for nothing because all of the products are bad? Why do I care about a user leaderboard for with streaks and their voting history? No noise?

People are so concerned with having an actual downvote button but not-so-concerned with how gameable upvote only systems are.

One of my favorite newsletters just gives links with one-line description. Done. What if this site just listed 10 products a day. No voting, no "judgment" by anyone except the person curating the links.

What if 100 products come out in a week. How do you choose?

etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.

Just another channel to saturate

[lakshikag]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. You raise some valid points. I'm working to strike a balance between giving visibility to products and avoiding the "popularity contest" vibe, and I'm definitely open to refining how that works.

As for the leaderboard and voting history, I understand your concern. The idea behind it is to encourage meaningful participations, but I get how it could feel like extra noise.

Also right now, it's first come, first served, with makers able to schedule their launch up to 30 days ahead. This keep things fair and transparent, ensuring everyone gets an equal opportunity without having to compete for visibility.

If the platform grows, I might explore other ways to keep things manageable whether that's a curated selection, specific categories, or something else BUT for now, the goal is to maintain a simple and fair system that gives everyone a shot.

[EyMaddis]

Hi Good job on launching! I like it quite a bit!

I’ve just won yesterday with https://partey.io and tried to contact you via mail (hello@) because I have several issues. Mostly I cannot answer any comments (or delete mine). This is especially awkward because I could post one asking for questions, I got some and now I cannot answer them… this was the case since yesterday and it’s very frustrating.

Also I am also technically the most voted product, yet I am in third place for all which kind of makes me feel cheated. I guess the comments count there as well (which is additionally frustrating)…?

Other notes:

* login sessions are extremely short

* links and upvote buttons need to be bigger(!). People are posting here to get people to visit the site and it is not prominent at all in the detail page

* the upvote button as a logged-out user leads to errors

* you have no contact info

[lakshikag]

Hey, hey! Sorry about the hiccups—still tweaking things based on users feedbacks.

1) Login sessions now last longer 2) Did some changes to the "Visit Website" button on product pages 3) It should take the user to the login page now 4) Hit me up on Bluesky or Twitter (@lakshikagayal)

On a side note, if you have any more suggestions, please add them in https://itslaunched.features.vote/board

[vidyesh]

What is with this idea of having engaged user metric for such sites? Why are engaged members rewarded and recognized when the products should be the one that should get the focus and attention.

Can someone please tell me what I fail to understand? I fail to see why such apps focus on the creator than the creation itself?

[lakshikag]

I get your point. The focus should definitely be on the product itself. The reason platform reward engaged users is often to build a supportive community around those products. Active users help promote, review and discuss products, which can give them the attention they deserve.

But I agree- it's important to make sure the product is always the main focus. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

[harrisreynolds]

This is nice! It looks like the pipeline is filling up! I signed up to launch NimbleAI [1] on your site.

One small issue with the launch date calendar. When I clicked a date in the calendar the popup with the actual launch date was always one day later. I wanted to launch on Tuesday, Jan 28, but when I picked that date it scheduled the launch for Wed, Jan 29.

BTW... what was the product you launched on PH that got buried??

Also... how funny would it be to launch ItsLaunched on PH and have it bubble to the top of PH! You should coordinate a launch on PH with all the users signed up for your new tool to get lots of votes. THAT would be awesome!

[1] https://www.nimbleai.co

[lakshikag]

Cheers for adding up NimbleAI, I'm excited to see it launch.

I’ve had someone else mention the calendar issue too, but I haven’t been able to replicate it on my end, so I’m struggling to pinpoint the exact cause. If it’s not too much trouble, could you send me a screen recording or some details about the steps you took? That would really help me figure this out. (Send me a DM on twitter @lakshikagayal)

As for PH, I’ve launched not only one but several products there in the past, but since I don’t have a big community following me, they all ended up getting buried pretty quickly.

And launching this on PH and make it the #1? now that would be poetic, maybe we’ll make it happen someday :D

[PaulHoule]

I think the only product that you could really launch on Product Hunt is a Product Hunt clone.

[appsDev]

Hey! I am launching my product on your site! Overall I think its really well made, 2 small things:

1) In categories it says (1) even for things that don't have a single launch listed when clicked maybe cuz there is an upcoming launch for the category, but none yet? IDK why, but just to let you know 2) Confirming the launch date (alert) said it was for one day before the one I selected, then on the confirmation page though it had the correct date.

I hope your site takes off! GL! ;)

[lakshikag]

Hey, that's awesome. Thank you for launching on the site and kind words.

1) The category issue is probably because it's counting upcoming launches as well. I will take a look at it and fix that right up.

2) Thanks for catching that date issue. I will dig into it and get it sorted out ASAP to avoid any mix ups.

It means a lot that you took the time to share these with me. Wishing you a great launch, and thanks again for the support.

[shahzaibmushtaq]

It is good to create direct, fair and healthy competition for the Product Hunt (I am all for diversity). Competition is always good for business.

As far as successful launching on Product Hunt and getting feature isn't just for everyone. You have to do marketing, building hype around your product, moderate product idea (it's a minimum to get featured), good copywriting and whatnot.

I'm also going to sign up because of its features.

[lakshikag]

Thank you for the kind words and support! You're absolutely right. Launching successfully anywhere requires a mix of everything. My goal with this platform is to level the playing field a bit more for indie makers and small teams who might not have the resources for a big marketing push.

Also excited to have you on board, and I hope the features make your experience worthwhile. Would love to hear your thoughts once you’ve explored the platform.

[Kkoala]

Nice, congratz on the launch!

Submitted my product for tomorrow, excited to see how it goes!

Some feedback: - Could probably benefit from adding white-space: pre-line; in a couple of places, e.g. comments to support line breaks - The encoding issue mentioned elsewhere too, stuff showing up as like ' - Launched today should maybe be a bit more prominent, but maybe it also looks better once there are more products that just one.

[lakshikag]

That's awesome! I'm really excited to see it on the platform tomorrow!

And thanks for the feedback; 1) I will add line breaks for comments 2) I'm aware of the encoding issue and will fix it soon 3) I agree that launched today section could stand out more. I will tweak that as we get more launches

Really appreciate your input, and good luck with the launch tomorrow!

[yellow_lead]

I like that you show the website stats. For an indie maker, we care about reach a lot. The transparency is important I think.

[lakshikag]

Transparency is a core part of what I'm aiming for. Glad you appreciate it!

[tolerance]

I like the name of it except for the missed opportunity to use the active voice instead of the passive. “It launched” is just as grammatically correct as “It has launched” in spite of how the passive voice gives an air of “regality” or whatever, it’s more laborious out of the mouth.

“It launched” is concise, direct, to the point and active.

[lakshikag]

Thank you for the thoughtful feedback! When I chose 'ItsLaunched', I was aiming for something that feels celebratory, like an announcement: "It's here, and it's ready"