This article was first published in the August 2015 issue of WIRED magazine. Be the first to read WIRED's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online
Ryan Hoover took five days to build his website, Product Hunt. Launched in December 2013, Hoover's site started off as a daily email newsletter for enthusiasts to gush about the coolest new things -- from music apps to productivity tools, smart kitchenware and games.
Now the site has become a Reddit for tech. Fourteen thousand listed products are ranked by an expert community, and 140,000 subscribe to its daily email. Visitor numbers are growing 50 per cent month on month, and Hoover has raised $7m (£4.5m) from investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Google Ventures and Y Combinator. "We are driving more than 2.5 million monthly visits from Product Hunt to the websites of products we feature," says Hoover.
On the Product Hunt ioses app, you can follow users, curate collections, discover recommendations for related products and search. The target communities are journalists, investors and makers. "It's a place where founders are unedited – they use the comments to explain their product features or give and take feedback very honestly," Hoover, 26, says. "In April 2014, a European video communication app called Taptalk was spotted by a Silicon Valley angel investor who saw it on Product Hunt, became an early user, and ended up investing in them. That led to other investors coming in as well." Hoover says that live video-streaming app Meerkat also credits Product Hunt as its media launchpad.
His plan for this year is to expand beyond tech products to music, entertainment and books. To this end, he recently launched Snoop Dogg's new album Bush through the site, which he says received 2,600 clickthroughs to Google Play within five hours of going live. And he's definitely thinking about making money. "The obvious short-term options are product promotions. We record every time people click or up-vote a product, so we can use the data to know exactly what people like," he says. "We want to help people make transactions quickly, so it's easier for them to buy products through the site."
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
