02 Jul 2025
Human Resources

An app to track wins for professional workers at work

Confidence
Engagement
Net use signal
Net buy signal

Idea type: Swamp

The market has seen several mediocre solutions that nobody loves. Unless you can offer something fundamentally different, you’ll likely struggle to stand out or make money.

Should You Build It?

Don't build it.


Your are here

You're entering a market already populated with several "wins tracking" or "employee recognition" solutions. Our analysis reveals that similar products have struggled to gain significant traction, suggesting that the market may be a 'Swamp'. You have medium confidence, with 5 similar products identified. Engagement with these existing solutions is low, averaging only 3 comments per product. While the comments from similar products are generally positive, they also highlight the difficulties of implementation and differentiation. It's a tough crowd, and it'll be hard to stand out without a fundamentally different approach.

Recommendations

  1. Given the existing solutions and the challenges they face, start by deeply researching why they haven't fully succeeded. Don't just look at features; examine their go-to-market strategies, target audiences, and the problems they encountered during implementation. Understanding their failures is critical before investing further.
  2. If you decide to proceed, identify a specific niche or underserved group within the professional worker space. General solutions often fail to resonate. For instance, could you focus on tracking wins specifically for remote teams, sales teams, or project-based workers? Specialization could be your key to differentiation. Tie any recognition directly to manager notifications to encourage alignment incentives.
  3. Consider exploring tools or plugins that integrate with existing platforms, such as Slack, Teams, or popular project management software. Building a standalone app is a higher barrier to entry. Instead, providing a value-added layer on top of established workflows could be a more strategic approach.
  4. Since competition is high, focus on outbound sales and marketing. Don't rely solely on organic growth. Actively reach out to potential customers, showcase the unique benefits of your solution, and build relationships. Consider a DevTool plugin to create early adopters.
  5. Before committing further resources, carefully evaluate adjacent problems that might offer more promising opportunities. Are there related pain points that are less saturated with solutions? Perhaps focusing on performance review automation or skills gap analysis would present a less competitive landscape.
  6. Create a demo video to showcase the app's functionality and value. This helps potential users quickly understand its benefits and how it solves their problems.
  7. If, after careful consideration, you still believe in your vision, be prepared to iterate rapidly and adapt your approach based on user feedback. The ability to pivot quickly will be crucial in such a competitive market. Continuously monitor key metrics to measure success.

Questions

  1. What fundamental assumptions are you making about the needs and behaviors of professional workers that existing solutions are missing? What is your unique angle?
  2. How will you measure and track the impact of your app on employee morale, productivity, and overall company performance? What metrics will demonstrate the value of your solution to potential customers?
  3. Considering the high competition, what's your plan to secure early adopters and build a loyal user base? Will you offer incentives, exclusive features, or personalized support to encourage adoption?

Your are here

You're entering a market already populated with several "wins tracking" or "employee recognition" solutions. Our analysis reveals that similar products have struggled to gain significant traction, suggesting that the market may be a 'Swamp'. You have medium confidence, with 5 similar products identified. Engagement with these existing solutions is low, averaging only 3 comments per product. While the comments from similar products are generally positive, they also highlight the difficulties of implementation and differentiation. It's a tough crowd, and it'll be hard to stand out without a fundamentally different approach.

Recommendations

  1. Given the existing solutions and the challenges they face, start by deeply researching why they haven't fully succeeded. Don't just look at features; examine their go-to-market strategies, target audiences, and the problems they encountered during implementation. Understanding their failures is critical before investing further.
  2. If you decide to proceed, identify a specific niche or underserved group within the professional worker space. General solutions often fail to resonate. For instance, could you focus on tracking wins specifically for remote teams, sales teams, or project-based workers? Specialization could be your key to differentiation. Tie any recognition directly to manager notifications to encourage alignment incentives.
  3. Consider exploring tools or plugins that integrate with existing platforms, such as Slack, Teams, or popular project management software. Building a standalone app is a higher barrier to entry. Instead, providing a value-added layer on top of established workflows could be a more strategic approach.
  4. Since competition is high, focus on outbound sales and marketing. Don't rely solely on organic growth. Actively reach out to potential customers, showcase the unique benefits of your solution, and build relationships. Consider a DevTool plugin to create early adopters.
  5. Before committing further resources, carefully evaluate adjacent problems that might offer more promising opportunities. Are there related pain points that are less saturated with solutions? Perhaps focusing on performance review automation or skills gap analysis would present a less competitive landscape.
  6. Create a demo video to showcase the app's functionality and value. This helps potential users quickly understand its benefits and how it solves their problems.
  7. If, after careful consideration, you still believe in your vision, be prepared to iterate rapidly and adapt your approach based on user feedback. The ability to pivot quickly will be crucial in such a competitive market. Continuously monitor key metrics to measure success.

Questions

  1. What fundamental assumptions are you making about the needs and behaviors of professional workers that existing solutions are missing? What is your unique angle?
  2. How will you measure and track the impact of your app on employee morale, productivity, and overall company performance? What metrics will demonstrate the value of your solution to potential customers?
  3. Considering the high competition, what's your plan to secure early adopters and build a loyal user base? Will you offer incentives, exclusive features, or personalized support to encourage adoption?

  • Confidence: Medium
    • Number of similar products: 5
  • Engagement: Low
    • Average number of comments: 3
  • Net use signal: 45.0%
    • Positive use signal: 45.0%
    • Negative use signal: 0.0%
  • Net buy signal: 0.0%
    • Positive buy signal: 0.0%
    • Negative buy signal: 0.0%

This chart summarizes all the similar products we found for your idea in a single plot.

The x-axis represents the overall feedback each product received. This is calculated from the net use and buy signals that were expressed in the comments. The maximum is +1, which means all comments (across all similar products) were positive, expressed a willingness to use & buy said product. The minimum is -1 and it means the exact opposite.

The y-axis captures the strength of the signal, i.e. how many people commented and how does this rank against other products in this category. The maximum is +1, which means these products were the most liked, upvoted and talked about launches recently. The minimum is 0, meaning zero engagement or feedback was received.

The sizes of the product dots are determined by the relevance to your idea, where 10 is the maximum.

Your idea is the big blueish dot, which should lie somewhere in the polygon defined by these products. It can be off-center because we use custom weighting to summarize these metrics.

Similar products

Relevance

Worklife - The recognition platform for modern teams

Worklife makes it fun and easy to give recognition at work and keep everyone in your team engaged and motivated. Celebrate great work, promote core values, and offer meaningful rewards, all from one platform. Get started for free 👉 https://app.worklife.so/

Worklife's Product Hunt launch garnered overwhelmingly positive feedback, with users congratulating Razin and the team. Many highlighted the product's potential to boost team morale and foster a positive workplace culture through employee recognition. The concept of integrating recognition with a social feed and core values was particularly well-received. Some users expressed interest in trying Worklife and noted the importance of recognition systems, drawing comparisons to internal tools used at companies like Amazon. There was a suggestion to focus on outbound sales given the high competition, and to create a DevTool plug-in.

Users expressed concern about the difficulty of implementing effective recognition systems. There's a desire for recognition features tied to manager notifications to align incentives. The product faces high competition, suggesting a need for proactive outbound sales efforts to differentiate and gain market share.


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57.1%
Relevance

I gamified remote workers efforts and make them feel recognized more

20 Oct 2024 Remote Work

Hello everyone!As a remote software engineer, I often felt disconnected and unrecognized. After talking with colleagues who felt the same, I built a tool to change that. It uses gamification—team members can give recognition, earn points, and collect badges. Leaders can send surveys for feedback, and everyone gets Slack notifications for recognition and surveys.Similar to how language learning apps like Duolingo and Memrise make studying fun by tapping into the brain's reward system, this tool brings that same concept to the workplace. Instead of the old, boring ways of recognizing co-workers, we added a game-like experience, focusing on making recognition more engaging and rewarding.I hope this helps others feel more connected and appreciated. I'd love to hear your feedback!Rami.

Users appreciate the gamified tool for remote worker recognition and feedback. They suggest adding a simple demo video on the homepage for better understanding.

The product lacks a demo video on the homepage, which users find essential for understanding its functionality and value quickly.


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4
2
2
4
Relevance

I gamified coworker recognition using a reward system

19 Oct 2024 Games

Hello everyone!As a remote software engineer, I often felt disconnected and unrecognized. After talking with colleagues who felt the same, I built a tool to change that. It uses gamification—team members can give recognition, earn points, and collect badges. Leaders can send surveys for feedback, and everyone gets Slack notifications for recognition and surveys.Similar to how language learning apps like Duolingo and Memrise make studying fun by tapping into the brain's reward system, this tool brings that same concept to the workplace. Instead of the old, boring ways of recognizing co-workers, we added a game-like experience, focusing on making recognition more engaging and rewarding.I hope this helps others feel more connected and appreciated. I'd love to hear your feedback!Rami.


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