A directory is only worth reading if you can trust the ordering.
DebutList is a launch and discovery directory where every product keeps one permanent page — the launch, the verified numbers, and eventually how it ended. This page explains the four mechanisms that make that claim checkable.
What this is
Most launch directories are event-shaped. A page is written on launch day, the product either wins the day or it does not, and the page then sits unchanged for years — a fossil of a single Tuesday.
DebutList treats the launch as the beginning of a record rather than the whole of it. The same URL accrues dated updates, verified revenue figures, reviews, price changes, a discount code if there is one, and — when it comes — a structured account of how the product ended. Nothing is deleted, and nothing is quietly rewritten.
The scope is horizontal from day one: Mac and desktop apps, AI products, developer tools, SaaS, mobile, hardware. We seed and market them one category at a time, because a directory that is forty products deep across twelve categories reads as abandoned.
How ranking works
Raw upvotes reward whoever can mobilise the largest group chat. The score weights five signals instead, and the weights are published here so that changing one is a public act.
| Signal | Weight | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Community votes | 30% | Still the clearest expression of interest — just not the only one |
| Verified metric movement | 25% | Growth we checked, not growth someone typed |
| Engagement depth | 20% | Time on page, outbound clicks, comment substance |
| Listing completeness | 15% | A finished page is more useful to a reader |
| Verified review quality | 10% | Verified purchases only; unverified reviews are weighted at zero |
| Total | 100% |
Vote velocity concentrated on a single referrer is discounted. Posting frequency is never a signal — only movement in numbers we verified — because rewarding volume is how an update feed turns into spam.
How verification works
- The founder authorises a read-only Stripe connection. It can be revoked from either side at any moment.
- We read aggregate figures only — revenue, customer counts, churn. Never customer names, emails, or card data.
- Figures are written to an append-only series. A correction adds a dated row; it does not overwrite one.
- If a connection goes stale, the badge expires after 45 days rather than continuing to show an old number.
- Anything self-reported stays visible and stays labelled. We do not hide it and we do not count it.
Sponsorship policy
This is the part that decides whether any of the rest is worth anything. The moment paid placement is disguised as organic, the database stops being worth reading.
For sale
- Homepage spotlight slot
- Category placements
- Promoted deals
- Newsletter placements
- Sponsored collections
Not for sale, at any price
- A position in any ranking
- A row in a comparison table
- A place on a best-of list
- A dofollow link
- Removal of a bad review
- Deletion of a closure record
Every paid link carries rel="sponsored". We sell
placement and traffic; selling ranking signals is link manipulation under Google's spam
policy and it would burn the customer's domain alongside ours.
Lifecycle records
A product on DebutList is in exactly one of five states.
- Active
- Shipping, and the founder says so
- Dormant
- No release in a long time, still reachable
- For sale
- Listed on the acquisition board
- Acquired
- Sold, with the record kept under the new owner
- Closed
- Ended, with a permanent closure record
Only the founder sets that state. Automated signals — no release in a year, a dead domain, a cancelled Stripe account — set an internal flag that a human reviews; they never publish a label on their own. Wrongly calling a live company dead is the worst mistake this feature can make, so any product can be claimed and any label appealed.
Closure records are kept permanently, and the product's alternatives page is promoted rather than delisted. People search hardest for a replacement the moment a tool they relied on goes away.
The company
DebutList is operated by Oxid Security Inc., a Canadian corporation. Payments run directly through Stripe rather than a merchant of record, prices are in USD, and sales tax is calculated at checkout — enter a business VAT or GST number and EU/UK sales reverse-charge to you.
Everything on the site that costs money is listed on the pricing page, and nothing that costs money changes what you see ranked. The rules people are held to are in the community guidelines.