[sgrove]

Rather than insight, the post you're replying to shows a lack of imagination.

Just off the top of my head, I ask myself how much revenue TechCrunch pulls in, and what it originally started as - and I can see a path for PH to become a 'real' (as in meaningful, sustainable revenue) company. Just because it isn't full of whizbang tech doesn't mean it can't make plenty of money and be valuable to other properties.

And that's just with 20 seconds of thought put into it. I'm sure there are many other angles as well.

[CPLX]

TechCrunch was WAY more popular that ProductHunt ever will be, was in a different and more frothy media landscape, had a very real and lucrative sub-business called the TC Disrupt conference (which I hear accounted for something like 75% of TechCrunch profits at the time) and still was acquired for only about $25-40MM, depending on who you ask.

Which makes this PH acquisition even more of a head scratcher.

[JohnnyConatus]

Care to share how? I don't have a dog in the fight but the onus is on you since you're saying there is path to significant monetization.

[subpixel]

Possibility and strategy are totally different animals. The fact is it is really hard to monetize a directory of things when you are not a party to the transaction.

The not-sexy model of charging businesses for exposure and leads works (see http://www.capterra.com/) but is probably not nearly rich enough to satisfy Product Hunt's VCs.

[csolorio]

Hmm...only number I could find is $2.4mm in revenue back in 2007