The Exchanges

Q question from Matt Hartman, actually. He, he, you managed to ask him a question in his interview, so he wanted to turn the tables on you now. He said, when looking at Product Hunt, it's an incredibly habit-forming product, and we know you worked with Nir Eyal with Hooked, so are there elements of Hooked that you deliberately baked into the infrastructure of Product Hunt? If so, what were they?

A Yeah, absolutely. So there's a number of different kind of user flows and, and, and things baked into that, that take note from, from hooked and, and what near is written about a ton. And at its core, the, the habit, uh, the loop that we're really trying to, to reinforce is, you know, there's a trigger. And in this case, I'll go through an example. So there's a trigger, which for us, there's the email digest, which hundreds of thousands of people subscribe to. And when they get this email digest, The action that we're trying to get them to take is open it and click on it, click on something there. And the reward for doing so, the whole reason why they do that is to find something interesting or inspiring or, or something they might, might want to use or download or purchase. And so the way we've kind of built the email is, you know, we, we incorporate some variability, like you don't know exactly what's going to be in the email. There's some consistency in that it's like yesterday's top products, but We also surface a different collection that, that's different every single day.

AI assessment note: “Yeah, absolutely. So there's a number of different kind of user flows”

Q No glaucoma. Damn it. Um, okay, and then, and then, you know, when I spoke to Matt, he said, you know, one of the reasons that BetaWorks found you, sorry, BetaWorks found you, was you kept popping up on their social media engagement shots, and, and everyone knows you, and feels like they have a really close relationship to you. Is that mostly achieved then through Twitter and Facebook?

A Yeah, less on Facebook, I would say, and, and, Mostly on Twitter, frankly. I've been using Twitter for several years. It's probably one of the most important products in my life. Um, actually without Twitter, I don't, I don't even know where I'd be, which is kind of a weird statement to make, but it's, it's such a serendipity machine, um, and has allowed me to meet a lot of people, and, and of course it's been, um, critical for Product Hunt, in that it's, it's a place where I can contact just about anyone, and personally communicate with them, and, and it's, um, Yeah, it's just something that I find a lot of value in, and by just regularly using, uh, Twitter, not only, like, sharing things, but, like, actively engaging and joining the discussion in some way has been helpful. Uh, before products, and I used to read a lot of blogs, actually, and a lot of articles, and I would get into a habit of sharing all the articles that I found useful, and one small, small difference that most people don't do is they usually share articles, but they rarely tag the author. And so just one small thing, I would share like maybe 10 articles a day, and I would always tag the author just to give them a hat tip and be like, hey, I like what you added, or what you wrote. And I would also not just tweet the title itself, but it would be something, some sort of context, like my take on it in some way.…

AI assessment note: “Yeah, less on Facebook, I would say, and, and, Mostly on Twitter, frankly.”

Q So when you look back then now, Product Hunt's gone from a newsletter to, to friends and some people on Twitter, say, to a venture-backed startup with employees around the globe. So what do you think has been the kind of key drivers to the success of the platform?

A Yeah. You know, I guess it, it all starts from the very beginning, I guess, in that to make a community work, to build something like this, you need, you need to really focus on the people in the beginning and, and do a lot of frankly manual, like labor, manual things to get it going. And in the very, very beginning, uh, you know, I emailed some friends of mine, some people that I knew and had built a relationship with over the years. A lot of them were founders or investors themselves and, and super connected in the startup space. Uh, And I emailed them and said, Hey, I'm working on this new thing. Um, it's just a fun side project. Check it out. Submit some products here if you find them and, and I'd appreciate it. And, and they listened to me because they knew me. And then over time we started expanding and we had more people sign up and I would do things like emailing the people that signed up and said, Hey, welcome. Uh, and I would actually, these would all be a hundred percent personal emails. Like I would look at their Twitter profile and say, Oh, they're, they worked there. And so I'd have some sort of context around who they were and, And actually, it led to a lot of interesting conversations, and in some cases, like, relationships that, that carried through long-term. And so, just a lot of little things like that, uh, tweeting at people and saying, hey, your product's …

AI assessment note: “to build something like this, you need, you need to really focus on the people”

Q No glaucoma. Damn it. Um, okay, and then, and then, you know, when I spoke to Matt, he said, you know, one of the reasons that BetaWorks found you, sorry, BetaWorks found you, was you kept popping up on their social media engagement shots, and, and everyone knows you, and feels like they have a really close relationship to you. Is that mostly achieved then through Twitter and Facebook?

A Yeah, less on Facebook, I would say, and, and, Mostly on Twitter, frankly. I've been using Twitter for several years. It's probably one of the most important products in my life. Um, actually without Twitter, I don't, I don't even know where I'd be, which is kind of a weird statement to make, but it's, it's such a serendipity machine, um, and has allowed me to meet a lot of people, and, and of course it's been, um, critical for Product Hunt, in that it's, it's a place where I can contact just about anyone, and personally communicate with them, and, and it's, um, Yeah, it's just something that I find a lot of value in, and by just regularly using, uh, Twitter, not only, like, sharing things, but, like, actively engaging and joining the discussion in some way has been helpful. Uh, before products, and I used to read a lot of blogs, actually, and a lot of articles, and I would get into a habit of sharing all the articles that I found useful, and one small, small difference that most people don't do is they usually share articles, but they rarely tag the author. And so just one small thing, I would share like maybe 10 articles a day, and I would always tag the author just to give them a hat tip and be like, hey, I like what you added, or what you wrote. And I would also not just tweet the title itself, but it would be something, some sort of context, like my take on it in some way.…

AI assessment note: “Yeah, less on Facebook, I would say, and, and, Mostly on Twitter, frankly.”

Q And everyone said, how much people love you, and, and how you're amazing at community building. So, talking of people then, and relationships, you harness the crowd for feedback on, on everything now at Product Hunt, really. From designs to features, and openly share your plans and, and versions. So why, firstly, why do you prefer this Uh, open-sourced feedback approach. What are the benefits to getting the crowd involved?

A Yeah, for us, since the, the core of Product 10 is the community and the people that use it, if, if, you know, the technology behind it, it's, it's not the most sophisticated. You know, the first version was, uh, really a Ruby on Rails app that Nathan, my, my buddy, he built it over like a five-day Thanksgiving holiday, and, and that's really the core of, of what Product 10 is. Like, it's definitely grown, and we've added a lot of things, but the core of that is still the same. So it's not the technology that Really, that, that makes Product Hunt work. It's really the people that use it and come back every single day. And so that's, that's why kind of building in public and sharing designs we're working on and getting feedback out in the open is super important because, one, we want to understand what are we missing. We're so heads down on designs and, and we're also like super power users of Product Hunt that, you know, we need feedback from people who aren't necessarily. We also need people to tell us what we're missing. And so getting that feedback early on before we've even built something has been super valuable. Um, we, we recently shared a, a mock-up of our new homepage that we're working on, and, and we had hundreds and hundreds of comments within the first day from people just submitting their ideas and, and things they didn't understand, and that's helped us now refin…

AI assessment note: “getting feedback out in the open is super important because, one, we want to understand”

Q question from Matt Hartman, actually. He, he, you managed to ask him a question in his interview, so he wanted to turn the tables on you now. He said, when looking at Product Hunt, it's an incredibly habit-forming product, and we know you worked with Nir Eyal with Hooked, so are there elements of Hooked that you deliberately baked into the infrastructure of Product Hunt? If so, what were they?

A Yeah, absolutely. So there's a number of different kind of user flows and, and, and things baked into that, that take note from, from hooked and, and what near is written about a ton. And at its core, the, the habit, uh, the loop that we're really trying to, to reinforce is, you know, there's a trigger. And in this case, I'll go through an example. So there's a trigger, which for us, there's the email digest, which hundreds of thousands of people subscribe to. And when they get this email digest, The action that we're trying to get them to take is open it and click on it, click on something there. And the reward for doing so, the whole reason why they do that is to find something interesting or inspiring or, or something they might, might want to use or download or purchase. And so the way we've kind of built the email is, you know, we, we incorporate some variability, like you don't know exactly what's going to be in the email. There's some consistency in that it's like yesterday's top products, but We also surface a different collection that, that's different every single day.

AI assessment note: “there's a trigger, which for us, there's the email digest”

Q So when you look back then now, Product Hunt's gone from a newsletter to, to friends and some people on Twitter, say, to a venture-backed startup with employees around the globe. So what do you think has been the kind of key drivers to the success of the platform?

A Yeah. You know, I guess it, it all starts from the very beginning, I guess, in that to make a community work, to build something like this, you need, you need to really focus on the people in the beginning and, and do a lot of frankly manual, like labor, manual things to get it going. And in the very, very beginning, uh, you know, I emailed some friends of mine, some people that I knew and had built a relationship with over the years. A lot of them were founders or investors themselves and, and super connected in the startup space. Uh, And I emailed them and said, Hey, I'm working on this new thing. Um, it's just a fun side project. Check it out. Submit some products here if you find them and, and I'd appreciate it. And, and they listened to me because they knew me. And then over time we started expanding and we had more people sign up and I would do things like emailing the people that signed up and said, Hey, welcome. Uh, and I would actually, these would all be a hundred percent personal emails. Like I would look at their Twitter profile and say, Oh, they're, they worked there. And so I'd have some sort of context around who they were and, And actually, it led to a lot of interesting conversations, and in some cases, like, relationships that, that carried through long-term. And so, just a lot of little things like that, uh, tweeting at people and saying, hey, your product's …

AI assessment note: “you need to really focus on the people in the beginning and, and do a lot of frankly manual”

Q Now, can you get the ball rolling today by telling us a little backstory and how you got started with Product Hunt and what the kind of aha moment was for you?

A Yeah, so it's actually been almost two years now. The anniversary's coming up soon. And so, yeah, Product Hunt started while I was kind of exploring new opportunities. I was at this other startup, and I was there for about three years. It's why I moved to San Francisco, went from 10 people to a hundred. And long story short, we grew, grew, and, you know, things changed a little bit. I got a little bit less passionate about what we were building. Um, I wanted to do something of my own and kind of move into the consumer space and build something ultimately for myself. And so I decided to leave, and during that kind of transition, I, I just had some ideas, and one of them was this thing that, for some reason, I called it Product Hunt. I don't really know where the name came from exactly, but, um, you know, I thought, okay, I like new products. I like talking about them. Oftentimes, my conversations are really revolving around new mobile apps or, or new websites, and, you know, I wanted a place where me and my friends could just share these things that we find every single day, and so that's where it started. I named it Product Hunt. I created an email list, And then just submitted it on Quib, tweeted it out, and got some, some subscribers and some contributors, and then it went from there.

AI assessment note: “I wanted a place where me and my friends could just share these things”

Q And everyone said, how much people love you, and, and how you're amazing at community building. So, talking of people then, and relationships, you harness the crowd for feedback on, on everything now at Product Hunt, really. From designs to features, and openly share your plans and, and versions. So why, firstly, why do you prefer this Uh, open-sourced feedback approach. What are the benefits to getting the crowd involved?

A Yeah, for us, since the, the core of Product 10 is the community and the people that use it, if, if, you know, the technology behind it, it's, it's not the most sophisticated. You know, the first version was, uh, really a Ruby on Rails app that Nathan, my, my buddy, he built it over like a five-day Thanksgiving holiday, and, and that's really the core of, of what Product 10 is. Like, it's definitely grown, and we've added a lot of things, but the core of that is still the same. So it's not the technology that Really, that, that makes Product Hunt work. It's really the people that use it and come back every single day. And so that's, that's why kind of building in public and sharing designs we're working on and getting feedback out in the open is super important because, one, we want to understand what are we missing. We're so heads down on designs and, and we're also like super power users of Product Hunt that, you know, we need feedback from people who aren't necessarily. We also need people to tell us what we're missing. And so getting that feedback early on before we've even built something has been super valuable. Um, we, we recently shared a, a mock-up of our new homepage that we're working on, and, and we had hundreds and hundreds of comments within the first day from people just submitting their ideas and, and things they didn't understand, and that's helped us now refin…

AI assessment note: “we want to understand what are we missing”

Q Now, can you get the ball rolling today by telling us a little backstory and how you got started with Product Hunt and what the kind of aha moment was for you?

A Yeah, so it's actually been almost two years now. The anniversary's coming up soon. And so, yeah, Product Hunt started while I was kind of exploring new opportunities. I was at this other startup, and I was there for about three years. It's why I moved to San Francisco, went from 10 people to a hundred. And long story short, we grew, grew, and, you know, things changed a little bit. I got a little bit less passionate about what we were building. Um, I wanted to do something of my own and kind of move into the consumer space and build something ultimately for myself. And so I decided to leave, and during that kind of transition, I, I just had some ideas, and one of them was this thing that, for some reason, I called it Product Hunt. I don't really know where the name came from exactly, but, um, you know, I thought, okay, I like new products. I like talking about them. Oftentimes, my conversations are really revolving around new mobile apps or, or new websites, and, you know, I wanted a place where me and my friends could just share these things that we find every single day, and so that's where it started. I named it Product Hunt. I created an email list, And then just submitted it on Quib, tweeted it out, and got some, some subscribers and some contributors, and then it went from there.

AI assessment note: “I wanted a place where me and my friends could just share these things”

Q Um, what would you suggest then to founders who maybe are looking to adopt a similar model? Is there anything they should be wary of or, or, you know, should they not get upset if they get negative feedback? What, what is it that you would suggest to them?

A You know, it's, it's, for those that have done user testing, we did some yesterday on the new homepage. User testing is the most, one of the most insightful things, but also painful things to watch. Because you see them using this thing that you spent all this time building, and you're like, this is beautiful. I've built a masterpiece. And then they, they look at it, and they're like, what the hell is this? I don't understand. It's super painful. But what you have to realize is also that, again, you're, you're super heads down. You know everything about the product as a creator. Of it, and these are the people who are looking at it for the first time. So you have to come, come in with that context, and then also be, um, let go of ego. I, you know, I, sometimes I struggle with this, because, you know, I, I like to think that I have good ideas, but I also am self-aware enough that my ideas aren't always correct. So you, as a creator, have to, like, be open to feedback, and be honest, and be empathetic in, in their feedback. Um, now that all said, just because we ask for feedback, and people tell us things, doesn't, I mean, we're going to listen. We're not going to, I mean, we're not going to change it because of the feedback they gave us. Like, we're going to look for patterns, and we're going to make changes, but there will inevitably be people that say, oh, like, this button sh…

AI assessment note: “not all the feedback is something that you should actually take action on”

Q And you said there about, kind of, the beta being open to, kind of, a few thousand people then, and, and that kind of leads to a question in terms of a lot of people... Kind of, maybe a concern that Product Hunt is fantastic for the early adopters, uh, which it is absolutely, but how do you plan to transition that from early adopters then to the mass market?

A Yeah, that's, that's a great question, and that's also the lens that we're taking all of this feedback in, in with, like, the people that are eager enough to participate in Slack and, and give us feedback, and become part of, like, the beta community, they're also the more engaged, hardcore users of Product Hunt, and their, their feedback is incredibly important, but it's also not going to be representative of the other subset of people who don't even know what Product Hunt is, and so, There are inevitably going to be some people who may not like some of the changes we make, and I'm confident that we'll, we'll find the right balance in building an experience where it's open to, you know, these other people that like other things. That's, that's really the whole purpose of the front page redesign. What we're doing is surfacing more types of content, different types of content that other people also love. Like everyone, I think most people in product hunt, they love technology, But a lot of people also love books, and a lot of them love podcasts, and they love games.

AI assessment note: “That's, that's really the whole purpose of the front page redesign.”

Q Um, what would you suggest then to founders who maybe are looking to adopt a similar model? Is there anything they should be wary of or, or, you know, should they not get upset if they get negative feedback? What, what is it that you would suggest to them?

A You know, it's, it's, for those that have done user testing, we did some yesterday on the new homepage. User testing is the most, one of the most insightful things, but also painful things to watch. Because you see them using this thing that you spent all this time building, and you're like, this is beautiful. I've built a masterpiece. And then they, they look at it, and they're like, what the hell is this? I don't understand. It's super painful. But what you have to realize is also that, again, you're, you're super heads down. You know everything about the product as a creator. Of it, and these are the people who are looking at it for the first time. So you have to come, come in with that context, and then also be, um, let go of ego. I, you know, I, sometimes I struggle with this, because, you know, I, I like to think that I have good ideas, but I also am self-aware enough that my ideas aren't always correct. So you, as a creator, have to, like, be open to feedback, and be honest, and be empathetic in, in their feedback. Um, now that all said, just because we ask for feedback, and people tell us things, doesn't, I mean, we're going to listen. We're not going to, I mean, we're not going to change it because of the feedback they gave us. Like, we're going to look for patterns, and we're going to make changes, but there will inevitably be people that say, oh, like, this button sh…

AI assessment note: “not all the feedback is something that you should actually take action on, of course.”

Q Yeah. And then, uh, transitioning from PM to CEO. What's hard about it?

A Hard, um, well, what I would say is, As a PM, you're actually very much a generalist. You have to communicate with pretty much everyone on the team. You have to do a lot of things. Um, and so that's been very helpful in transitioning to this role, but with, I guess, as a CEO role, your kind of ultimate job is to hire yourself out of a job in many ways, and so as we've grown the team, I need to find someone who's, you know, a better social person than me. I need to find a better designer than me. I need to find, you know, a better community manager and leader than me, and So eventually, um, I just hire myself at a job and then go to Hawaii is the goal. Uh, just kidding. Um, but that's true.

AI assessment note: “as a CEO role, your kind of ultimate job is to hire yourself out”

Q And you said there about, kind of, the beta being open to, kind of, a few thousand people then, and, and that kind of leads to a question in terms of a lot of people... Kind of, maybe a concern that Product Hunt is fantastic for the early adopters, uh, which it is absolutely, but how do you plan to transition that from early adopters then to the mass market?

A Yeah, that's, that's a great question, and that's also the lens that we're taking all of this feedback in, in with, like, the people that are eager enough to participate in Slack and, and give us feedback, and become part of, like, the beta community, they're also the more engaged, hardcore users of Product Hunt, and their, their feedback is incredibly important, but it's also not going to be representative of the other subset of people who don't even know what Product Hunt is, and so, There are inevitably going to be some people who may not like some of the changes we make, and I'm confident that we'll, we'll find the right balance in building an experience where it's open to, you know, these other people that like other things. That's, that's really the whole purpose of the front page redesign. What we're doing is surfacing more types of content, different types of content that other people also love. Like everyone, I think most people in product hunt, they love technology, But a lot of people also love books, and a lot of them love podcasts, and they love games.

AI assessment note: “surfacing more types of content, different types of content that other people also love”

Q Yeah. And then, uh, transitioning from PM to CEO. What's hard about it?

A Hard, um, well, what I would say is, As a PM, you're actually very much a generalist. You have to communicate with pretty much everyone on the team. You have to do a lot of things. Um, and so that's been very helpful in transitioning to this role, but with, I guess, as a CEO role, your kind of ultimate job is to hire yourself out of a job in many ways, and so as we've grown the team, I need to find someone who's, you know, a better social person than me. I need to find a better designer than me. I need to find, you know, a better community manager and leader than me, and So eventually, um, I just hire myself at a job and then go to Hawaii is the goal. Uh, just kidding. Um, but that's true.

AI assessment note: “as a CEO role, your kind of ultimate job is to hire yourself out”