1/ .@rrhoover wasn't a founder that investors typically like:

- He was solo.
- He was non-technical.

He built and sold @ProductHunt to @AngelList for $20M and is now a VC with @weekendfund.

Here
are Ryan's smart tactics to build PH into an industry-known brand... 👇👇👇

2/ Ryan hated hourly pay because he was paid the same whether he did a good or bad job.

He hunted for cheap electronics and flipped them on eBay for a profit. He sold between $150k - $200k in merchandise in high school and college.

He learned he enjoyed hunting for products.
3/ Ryan used to blog a lot.

He knew email was a great channel for re-engaging his audience. His post "Email-First Startups" outlined companies that started as emails, and it went viral on Twitter and Hacker News.

However, the popular narrative was that email was dead and dumb.
4/ Being non-technical and contrarian, Ryan built an email list as Product Hunt's MVP.

He built it in 20 minutes and got a few hundred subscribers.

Email worked. All his users were active in their inboxes. Email let Ryan experiment with content in ways websites wouldn't allow.
5/ Ryan already built a small following from his years of writing about products and from helping @nireyal write "Hooked."

This following became Product Hunt's first few hundred users.
6/ Press was a good early channel.

Ryan wrote for Fast Company "How We Got Our First 2,000 Users Doing Things That Don’t Scale."

Hilariously, his entire goal with that article was to get Product Hunt an additional 1,000 users! 💀😂
7/ Ryan used Twitter to grow too.

As users submitted products, Ryan spent his first hour every morning finding the products' makers on Twitter. He'd invite them to join PH to answer questions and join the discussion.

Twitter and press alone got PH to several thousand users.
8/ When Ryan applied to Y Combinator, PH was growing 50% MoM for three months already.

Although he thought being solo and non-technical hurt his case, he applied after encouragement from @garrytan, @alexisohanian, @KatManalac & @supalyt.

He raised PH's Series A right after YC.
9/ Since he's non-technical, Ryan built PH's team to be remote, by necessity rather than choice.

@andreasklinger joined Ryan as CTO. He was in Vienna and recruited engineers from his network in Europe.

Andreas and Ryan came together with a shared passion for the PH community.
10/ Ryan also had a hot take on customer support.

To him, user complaints were chances to engage his users, not a cost center.

He Command-Tab'd to TweetDeck constantly and saw every PH mention. His responses were so quick that the community felt personable and approachable.
11/ Today, Product Hunt is still the go-to destination for makers to launch new products.

Within my founder circles, everyone takes their PH launch very seriously. PH can move the needle so much that some of my friends take weeks or months to prepare for their PH launch.
12/ Follow @rrhoover! He's great on Twitter.

If you liked this thread, follow @dillonzfo. I tweet daily threads about smart moves by smart people to make money.

If you like investing, I'm building Steady Capital so you can invest in real estate for $100: https://t.co/aRDSj4c29A

More from All

You May Also Like

The chorus of this song uses the shlokas taken from Sundarkand of Ramayana.

It is a series of Sanskrit shlokas recited by Jambavant to Hanuman to remind Him of his true potential.

1. धीवर प्रसार शौर्य भरा: The brave persevering one, your bravery is taking you forward.


2. उतसारा स्थिरा घम्भीरा: The one who is leaping higher and higher, who is firm and stable and seriously determined.

3. ुग्रामा असामा शौर्या भावा: He is strong, and without an equal in the ability/mentality to fight

4. रौद्रमा नवा भीतिर्मा: His anger will cause new fears in his foes.

5.विजिटरीपुरु धीरधारा, कलोथरा शिखरा कठोरा: This is a complex expression seen only in Indic language poetry. The poet is stating that Shivudu is experiencing the intensity of climbing a tough peak, and likening

it to the feeling in a hard battle, when you see your enemy defeated, and blood flowing like a rivulet. This is classical Veera rasa.

6.कुलकु थारथिलीथा गम्भीरा, जाया विराट वीरा: His rough body itself is like a sharp weapon (because he is determined to win). Hail this complete

hero of the world.

7.विलयगागनथाला भिकारा, गरज्जद्धरा गारा: The hero is destructive in the air/sky as well (because he can leap at an enemy from a great height). He can defeat the enemy (simply) with his fearsome roar of war.
This is a pretty valiant attempt to defend the "Feminist Glaciology" article, which says conventional wisdom is wrong, and this is a solid piece of scholarship. I'll beg to differ, because I think Jeffery, here, is confusing scholarship with "saying things that seem right".


The article is, at heart, deeply weird, even essentialist. Here, for example, is the claim that proposing climate engineering is a "man" thing. Also a "man" thing: attempting to get distance from a topic, approaching it in a disinterested fashion.


Also a "man" thing—physical courage. (I guess, not quite: physical courage "co-constitutes" masculinist glaciology along with nationalism and colonialism.)


There's criticism of a New York Times article that talks about glaciology adventures, which makes a similar point.


At the heart of this chunk is the claim that glaciology excludes women because of a narrative of scientific objectivity and physical adventure. This is a strong claim! It's not enough to say, hey, sure, sounds good. Is it true?
These 10 threads will teach you more than reading 100 books

Five billionaires share their top lessons on startups, life and entrepreneurship (1/10)


10 competitive advantages that will trump talent (2/10)


Some harsh truths you probably don’t want to hear (3/10)


10 significant lies you’re told about the world (4/10)