Product Hunt AMA
Horowitz hosts an AMA on Product Hunt. On his mentors:
At this point in my life, I would probably refer to them as friends rather than mentors. Bill Campbell and Andy Grove are probably the two that I have learned the most from. Andy’s whole life is a great lesson in how I should live mine. The way that Bill listens to people is so advanced that I learn something every time I’m with him. There are other people on other fields. Like Nas. Nas has the ability to see the world in such a radically different perspective. We can listen to the same song and he’ll hear 30 things that I didn’t.
On a Silicon Valley bubble:
Having been CEO in 2001, I don’t think that we’re anywhere near where we were then. Valuations have gotten high in certain tech sectors in the private markets only, but they have actually corrected themselves pretty quickly. For example, enterprise software started to get over valued privately, but after several companies went public at lower valuations than their last private rounds, the private markets corrected as well. I don’t see a massive crash on the horizon like 2001. In 2001, Nasdaq lost 80% of its value. I’ll bet any bubble believer everything that I have that Nasdaq won’t drop 80% in the next 5 years.
ProductHunt Community NYC interview
Hoover does an ask-me-anything style interview with the NYC Product Hunt community. On what the next three months looks like for Product Hunt:
We’re really focusing on recruiting and building out the team and the existing product, and focusing on our current community and audience
Mashable interview
Hoover talks about the growth of Product Hunt and how people now recognize him in public:
It’s been happening more than I would expect lately. It makes me feel slightly more self-conscious and aware of what I’m doing.
The Social Hour interview
Hoover talks about curating new products, how Facebook wants companies to use its service, Google’s investment of $50 million to inspire female coders, and how Product Hunt is somewhere between Reddit and Hacker News.
It’s not a review site and it’s not a site to find the best thing for [something specific]…people go there to find things they wouldn’t find elsewhere
ProductPeople interview
Hoover tells the podcast about his strategy of building an audience, and then creating something valuable for the community.
We built Product Hunt over four days, during Thanksgiving
Fox News interview
Hoover talks about how venture capitalists use Product Hunt:
VCs have two different hats, the investor hat and the consumer hat, they use the site they like to find new things [and there are] very many cases where VCs have invested in products that I know of that they found on Product Hunt.
That includes SV Angel’s investment in the TapTalk photo app, Steadfast Venture Capital’s investment in the Fitbay fitness social network, and Move Loot, which has got funding from Google Ventures.
I didn’t build Product Hunt for VCs, I didn’t build a product to serve investors, but it is serving them…ultimately I’m building a product for myself and for consumers.
This Week In Startups interview
Hoover and Calacanis talk about new products on Product Hunt like the Uber Wedding app and Soundcloud for iOS, how he got the idea for the site, and how viewers can interact with the people who create the products.
There’s some very interesting conversations that come out of Product Hunt.
He says that for an app called InstaNerd, site users contributed ideas and the founder incorporated them to improve the product.
Reality Makers interview
Hoover talks about the small but growing Portland tech scene, selling stuff on eBay, how his dad inspired him to become an entrepreneur, and what motivates people to start startups:
It’s ultimately freedom
