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#6July 16, 201950:24

#4- How Product Hunt's Ryan Hoover Built A $20M Community From S…

The origin of Product Hunt as a side experimentManual community building and growth hacking via TwitterThe acquisition of Product Hunt by AngelListEarly-stage investing through the Weekend Fund

About This Episode

This episode features Ryan Hoover, founder of Product Hunt, discussing the organic growth of his platform from a simple email experiment into a $20 million community acquired by AngelList. Host Shaan Puri shares the backstory of almost hiring Ryan and how honest rejection feedback helped shape Ryan's leadership journey before his massive success. The conversation covers early-stage growth tactics, the challenges of vertical expansion into gaming and podcasts, and Ryan's current work with the Weekend Fund.

Episode Description

Who knew a product about other products could be worth tens of millions... Ryan Hoover (@rrhoover) tells us the struggle of trying to find a place in the startup world and how to tackle job rejection the right way - becoming his own boss! Truly starting from scratch, he runs us through the scrappy early days of e-mailing people one by one just to gain an extra dozen users... now that's some hustle! Tune into this episode and he'll teach you ways to push that little bit further to making your first million.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Key Takeaways

1

Build community 'brick by brick' by manually welcoming early users and personally amplifying their contributions on social media to create a feeling of momentum.

2

When applying for roles or pitching, provide value upfront by researching users and offering specific product improvements rather than just submitting a resume.

3

Be wary of vertical expansion that compromises the core user experience; Product Hunt's attempts to integrate gaming and podcasts failed because they didn't offer a native, console-specific or mobile-first experience.

Featuring

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Ryan Hoover

2 episodes

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Quick Stats

Duration50:24
Guests1
Ideas Discussed0
Topics4