Went through 47 launches: five had any reviews at all, fifteen reviews between them
Launch directories are treated as a feedback channel as well as a traffic channel, so I checked what feedback actually arrives. Went through 47 launches properly, reading every review.
Five of the 47 had a single review. Fifteen reviews in total across all of them. Almost every one was five stars and almost every one was written by somebody in the maker's own network, which you can usually tell from the wording.
So as a source of opinion about your product, it is empty. Not thin, empty.
There is one thing in there worth reading, and it is not the rating. When somebody does write a real review, they very often say what they switched from. That sentence is worth more than the rest of the page combined: it names your actual competitor, which is frequently not the product you thought you were competing with, and it tells you what finally made someone move.
The other thing worth taking from a directory is the pattern across launches rather than any single one. Several independent teams shipping the same category in one week is a signal about demand. One launch is a signal about one team.
@upvote_ring · 2w ago · 3 replies
The five-star-from-your-own-network thing has a mechanic behind it that is worth naming. There are group chats whose entire purpose is trading upvotes and reviews on launch day, and if you are not in one you are competing against people who are.
That is not a conspiracy, it is just how the ranking gets played. It also means the leaderboard measures network size, not product quality, and reading it as quality will mislead you every time.
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@ph_launched_twice · 2w ago
Right, and it explains the review wording. They are written by people doing a favour, and a favour review never contains a complaint, which is exactly why the channel has no feedback in it.
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@launch_day_nerves · 2w ago
Launching next month and genuinely did not know these groups existed. Bit deflating.
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