I used to think that the best way of getting users is to launch on places like ProductHunt.
According to those gurus and ai, "Product Hunt has the exact target user you're looking for". Wrong. People browsing on launch platforms are so crammed with information, that makes it hard for your particular app to gain much users for 2 reasons:
1. Not everyone is here to buy. Most people are there to launch their own stuff. So the high-quality people turns into low-quality traffic.
2. There are just so many products that only 1-2 products that Product Hunters see will ever be bought by them.
That's the cold reality I've realized...
So, I'm starting to see it more as a method of gaining credibility. That's why the badges matter so much now.
True. But how do I know if it will be caught later anyways? I'd just end up getting distracted in the middle of my work, which is arguably even more distracting, right?
This is what I really don't get: What's wrong with just typing? Its more private, and can be efficiently documented and shared (unlike a voice agent, which has to waste energy translating audio back to text).
I'm a high school student. My co-founder and I work on our startup for ~1 hour per day between homework and sleep.
The problem we kept hitting: Sitting down to code at 9pm, spending 15 minutes checking:
- GitHub (what got pushed?)
- Gmail (any user issues?)
- Discord (team updates?)
- Analytics (signups, errors, metrics)
- Trying to remember what I was working on
Then finally starting to code at 9:15pm with 45 minutes left.
So we built Dirac. One command pulls from your connected services and gives you a plain-text summary of what happened since you last checked.
*Tech details:*
- local-hosted widget
- OAuth integrations with GitHub, Gmail, Discord
- Local caching for speed
- Written in python + electron
- Currently pulls: commits, PR comments, emails matching filters, team messages, basic metrics
*Current limitations (being honest):*
- Only works for solo/small teams (not enterprise-scale)
- Summary quality varies (working on better filtering)
- Setup takes ~5 minutes (too long)
- No mobile app yet
*Why we're launching at 80%:*
This is our third pivot. First tried building a general AI agent (too hard). Then task automation (no market). Now solving our own problem. We needed to validate before spending 3 more months building.
Launched on Product Hunt today (currently #18). Learning that launching is more about conversation than ranking.
For HN: What am I missing technically? What would make this actually useful vs. just another aggregator?
Not all conciousness-gaining moments are super climatic