I’m building a Product Hunt alternative for indie makers — what would make you actually use it?

A permanent page and a durable backlink are necessary, but they are not why I would switch. What I actually need from a discovery platform is signal after the spike: who came back, which problem page converted, and whether the traffic matched the buyer I am trying to reach. Launch day upvotes are easy to game and hard to learn from. If IndieNeed can show me that a visitor returned a week later or bounced for a specific reason, that is more useful than another badge on my landing page.

Huge congrats on building this! I'm curious about your process: when it comes to your content strategy, did you lean more into long-form SEO to drive traffic, or was it mostly community-driven engagement that helped you convert those early users? Also, did any specific AI-powered tools help you scale your workflow as things started picking up speed? Keep building!

For me, the biggest reason to submit to a new launch platform would be qualified traffic, not just another badge or upvote count.

If I’m submitting a product, I’d want to know that the people discovering it are actually founders/builders who might use it — and ideally see where that traffic came from.

The biggest thing I dislike about existing launch platforms is that a lot of the launch feels like a one-day spike. You get votes, comments, maybe some traffic, and then the product disappears.
A platform that gives products long-term discoverability + useful analytics + recurring exposure would be much more interesting to me.

One thing I’d definitely prioritize: make it extremely easy to discover products by problem/use case, not just category. That could become a real differentiator.

1. Traffic, but from the right target audience.
2. My main problem with product hunt and other similar websites is that the audience is only product builders, which is not a relevant niche for most user products

Honest answer from someone whose acquisition is 100% organic search and has never done a launch: a one-day vote spike is worth almost nothing to me. My users arrive one at a time through search, over months.

What would actually make me submit is a permanent, indexable product page, a durable (ideally followed) backlink, and honest categorization so I can show up for the problem I actually solve rather than compete in a launch-day popularity contest.

PH’s value is the spike. The durable-page part is the gap you could actually own.

The main thing that would make me use something like this is if it felt less about launch-day spikes and more about sustained discovery for smaller products. Curious how you’re thinking about that part.

For me, the biggest reason to use a new launch platform wouldn't be another product page or backlink — it would be the feedback loop after submitting.

A lot of launch platforms are great at creating a spike of visibility, but once the launch is over, there's not much reason to come back.

I'd be more interested in something that helps answer: who actually discovered my product, what caught their attention, what they didn't understand, and what changed after the launch?

Even lightweight structured feedback around those questions would be more valuable to me than another upvote count.

The interesting challenge might be making the platform useful between launches, not just on launch day.

Great idea. For me, the most valuable things in a launch platform would be real discovery, quality feedback, backlinks, and meaningful engagement rather than just an upvote count.

One thing I dislike about many launch platforms is that visibility can depend heavily on having an existing audience or paying for promotion. A fair system that gives smaller makers a genuine chance to be discovered would be much more useful.

I’d also value analytics showing where visitors come from and whether they actually engage with or try the product. That would make the platform much more useful beyond launch day.

From the perspective of someone building a pre-launch and waitlist tool, what would make me submit is attribution and follow-through—not another launch-day spike. I’d want to know which visitors clicked through, where they came from, and what happened after the click.

My biggest frustration with existing platforms is that the launch effectively ends after 24 hours. A permanent page plus recurring resurfacing based on meaningful product updates would feel genuinely different. How are you thinking about preventing founders with larger existing audiences from dominating the rankings?

The thing that would make me submit isn't traffic or backlinks — it's early, honest feedback from people who actually try the product. Launch platforms optimize for vanity numbers because those are easy to show. What makers actually need is the first few strangers who click through, use it, and tell you what's broken. If you can make that feedback loop visible and fast, that's a differentiator no directory has. The second thing I hate about existing platforms: they're a one-day event, not a conversation. Your permanent product page idea is the right instinct — build for the week after launch, not the launch day.

Hey, I like your idea.

But as a user, being very honest. I think your idea isn't the issue; it's your website design. Suppose you don't make your own website design. It becomes so hard to stand out.

If I put my hand on the logo, there is no way I can tell which website this is. Please put in some more effort and redesign your whole website to give it a unique look.