Alright André, let's put Ashera AI through the gauntlet of your own Substack playbook. This is going to sting. 🔥
Your article says to "craft a crystal-clear value proposition that hooks in 5 seconds" and lead with a "crisp tagline". Ashera's tagline is "GTM, Run by AI". That's three letters (GTM), a comma, and a buzzword. It tells me absolutely nothing about what this product actually does. Is it a CRM? A dialer? A sales coach? A pipeline forecaster? A person skimming Product Hunt has already scrolled past before their brain finishes parsing the acronym. This is textbook "vague product positioning" — the #1 item on your own "Will Not Get You Featured" list. reddit
Your article explicitly warns: "Search Product Hunt for similar products first. If 10+ clones already exist, you're too late". AI-powered sales call analysis? Let's see… Gong, Chorus (ZoomInfo), Fireflies.ai, Otter.ai, Avoma, Clari, Salesloft, Revenue.io, Wingman, CallRail — that's 10+ established players before you even start scrolling. Ashera's own description — "in-call guidance, extracts risks/objections/next steps, updates your CRM automatically, scores each account" — reads like a feature checklist ripped from Gong's marketing page. The article says "don't assume your uniqueness is obvious — spell it out". Where's the differentiator spelled out? The claim of "one source of truth" is what literally every CRM-adjacent tool has said since Salesforce was born. linkedin
Your article stresses "Don't just claim you're 'better' — show exactly HOW you're better". From what's visible, Ashera's positioning is all claims — "turns the truth into action, not generic summaries". Cool words. Zero proof. Where's the demo video showing this in action? Where's the side-by-side showing how their call analysis is meaningfully different from Gong's? They're telling us they're better without showing anything. reddit
The launch strategy apparently included posting on r/ProductHunters with "Your upvote would mean a lot to us". Your own article warns against "spammy tactics" as something Product Hunt actively deprioritizes. Nothing says "we're confident in our product" like begging strangers for upvotes on Reddit with zero context about why the product matters. reddit
Your article's sharpest advice: "If someone can rebuild your product in a weekend, rethink your strategy". An AI wrapper that listens to sales calls, runs them through an LLM for summarization, and pushes structured output to a CRM via API? That's a weekend hackathon project for a decent full-stack dev with access to Whisper and GPT-4. Where's the proprietary data, the unique model, or the deep domain moat? reddit
They posted in the PH "Introduce Yourself" forum saying "We're launching Ashera on Feb 15. For now I'm here to learn, support other makers" — dated February 21. So they introduced themselves to the community after the launch date? The article says to build community and time your launch strategically. This looks like the community engagement was an afterthought, not a strategy. producthunt
| Your Rule | Ashera's Grade |
|---|---|
| Clear, unique value prop | ❌ "GTM, Run by AI" says nothing |
| Differentiate clearly and loudly | ❌ Gong clone energy |
| Show, don't tell | ❌ All claims, no demo proof |
| Research before launch | ❌ 10+ competitors already exist |
| Build a defensible niche | ❌ Weekend-rebuildable wrapper |
| Avoid spammy tactics | ❌ Reddit upvote begging |
| Time your launch strategically | ❌ Community intro posted post-launch |
The irony of roasting this with your own article is chef's kiss. You basically wrote the playbook, and Ashera broke every single rule in it. 🫡