[Centigonal]

I appreciate that you've put months of effort into this project, and your site looks slick. I'm going to share some candid feedback. Not trying to be mean, but I am trying to help you think through your service's value prop and business model.

What you've actually created here is an advertising platform that helps indie hackers and startups get in front of... other bootstrappers. This is a limited audience, in size, in scope, and in available spend.

If you want to build a community, you may be better off with a Discord server and spreading through word of mouth - or something more personalized and closed like Inbox Startup if you want to monetize it. If you want to sit in the middle of the indie hacker community and collect fees on featured slots, you've got find a way to sell access to an audience that's worth $9. You're competing with product sites which are free and ad networks that give you very fine grained targeting of a wide range of audiences.

People go to sites like PH to be surprised and delighted by interesting new products. Even if the upvote system is borked, users have some faith in the wisdom of the crowd and the PH brand. Why would I, as a user, want to see a list of "everyone who had $9 to give to Filip today" over a list of "products other indie hackers thought were cool?"

Finally, a very diligent user might look at 20 products a day on a site like PH or this one. Let's say you sell out your top 20 feature slots every day. That caps you at $66K gross revenue per year... unless you raise your prices.

[FilipPanoski]

Thank you so much for taking the time to write this detailed feedback! I actually agree with everything you've outlined here.

My longterm goal with SaaSCurate isn't to rely on the $9 featured slots as the main monetization or draw for users. Instead, I am working to build a community where founders actively support each other through their growth journey.

When someone publishes a product on the platform, other community members receive an email notification so that they can check out the product, leave endorsements and connect. I've also got a Discord server linked in the platform as a space for founders to engage directly.

The $9 featured slots are more of a stepping stone to help fund and shape the broader vision I have for SaaSCurate. I want to help founders grow their products not just by publishing, but with other features that go beyond just product visibility.

Thank you again for your detailed feedback, I truly appreciate it and I am glad to see that we're aligned in the thought process.