Communicate with Users, Build Something They Want

Hoover says Product Hunt began as an email list that took about 20 minutes to set up and quickly drew a few hundred subscribers. Email, Typeform, and Stripe can help founders test interest and willingness to pay before investing in code. He says early growth, including roughly 50% month-over-month growth in visits, helped demonstrate demand to YC.

Hoover describes Ship as a toolkit for announcing products, collecting emails, and getting feedback. Product Hunt had previously combined tools such as Mailchimp, Typeform, and InVision to do this. He argues that involving users and responding to them increases the chances of building something they want.

Hoover says his writing and relationships with founders and investors helped attract Product Hunt’s first few hundred subscribers. Press and guest articles brought early users, and he personally invited makers to join conversations about their products. Later, community members could tag makers, and a bot notified them at scale.

Hoover says YC’s weekly group office hours created accountability and encouraged the team to follow through. As Product Hunt hired, its processes changed, while a data-driven and customer-focused culture continued. He learned that changing a designer’s work himself caused frustration, and that founders need to give skilled teammates autonomy.

Hoover says Product Hunt had 17 people across eight or nine time zones, with about two-thirds outside San Francisco. A distributed team widened hiring options, reduced location constraints, and may have helped the company understand international users. He also describes serving both people who enjoy a daily stream of products and those who prefer a weekly digest.