20 VC FF 026: Ryan Hoover, Founder @ ProductHunt on Relationship Building, Habit Forming and The Vision for ProductHunt
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
The Twenty Minute VC
4.4 • 637 Ratings
🗓️ 11 December 2015
⏱️ 31 minutes
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Summary
Ryan Hoover is the Founder and CEO @ ProductHunt, winner of TechCrunch "Best New Startup 2014". ProductHunt is a community of people sharing, upvoting, and geeking out about new technology products, games, and books. Before Product Hunt, Ryan was an EIR at Tradecraft and Director of Product at PlayHaven. As a writer, Ryan has contributed to Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products by Nir Eyal and written many essays, including features for TechCrunch, Forbes, Pando, Fast Company, and The Next Web. He writes about startup trends, product designs, and production growth on his blog, ryanhoover.me.
I would like to thank Mattermark for providing all the data and analysis for this interview and you can check them out here!
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In Today's Episode You Will Learn:
1.) How did ProductHunt get started and what was the a-ha moment for Ryan in the founding of ProductHunt?
2.) PH has gone from a newsletter to friends to a a16z backed startup with employees around the globe. What have been the drivers of PH's success?
3.) PH harness the crowd for feedback on everything from designs to features. Why does Ryan prefer this open sourced feedback approach? What are the benefits? What would Ryan suggest to founders looking to adopt a similar feedback style?
4.) Question from Matt Hartman at Betaworks: Considering Ryan's work with Nir Eyal on Hooked, are there elements of Hooked that Ryan baked into the infrastructure of PH and what were they?
5.) How has Ryan created such a close and intimate relationship with his audience? What are the tools and strategies that Ryan uses to build that community? What advice does Ryan give for people looking to network and make a community around them?
6.) Where does Ryan see PH in 5 years time? What is his vision for the PH platform? How does a platform such as ProductHunt plan to monetise?
Items Mentioned In Today's Episode:
Ryan's Fave Book: The Art of Game Design: A Book Of Lenses
Ryan's Fave Podcasts: TWIST by Jason Calacanis, Startup: Gimlet Media, Mystery Show: Gimlet Media
As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Ryan on Twitter here!
If you would like to see a more colourful side to Harry with many a mojito session, you can follow him on Instagram here!
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to the 20 Minute VC and Founders Friday with your host Harry Stebbings. |
| 0:05.9 | Now I'm so excited to welcome today's founder. He is a friend and a massively rising star in the industry. |
| 0:12.4 | It is of course Ryan Hoover, founder and CEO at Product Hunt, one of my favourite sites which I'm without |
| 0:18.9 | a doubt on every single day. |
| 0:24.4 | I'm most definitely not the only one, as it has seen phenomenal growth and won 2014's best new startup at TechCrunch's Awards, |
| 0:29.4 | and they've raised investment from the likes of Andrewsson Horowitz, SV Angel, |
| 0:34.0 | beta works, and many more incredible investors. |
| 0:37.2 | And Ryan himself is an absolute legend and |
| 0:39.3 | obviously has an immense talent and eye for product. But I also always regard Ryan as being the best |
| 0:44.9 | community builder and most engaged founder there is. He's constantly on Twitter and constantly |
| 0:50.8 | engaging with his audience. And you can see for yourself by following him on Twitter at R.R. Hoover. |
| 0:56.9 | And I'd also like to say a huge thank you to Mattermark today |
| 1:00.3 | for providing all the data and analysis for today's episode. |
| 1:03.8 | And you can check them out at www.mattermark.com. |
| 1:07.6 | They really are awesome. |
| 1:09.0 | Also, if you're ever light on startup and VC reading material, |
| 1:12.6 | you must follow Mattermark's app Thinker for all the latest startup and VC news. But before we |
| 1:18.6 | dive into the show today, for all startup founders and entrepreneurs looking for legal assistance, |
| 1:24.3 | you must check out 500 startups company Law Trades, which provides a marketplace |
| 1:29.3 | of awesome business attorneys with strong domain experience with startups, and they've helped |
| 1:35.1 | startups from top accelerators like YC, tech stars, and of course 500 startups. And check out the show |
| 1:42.4 | notes to book a free legal strategy with them or simply head |
... |
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