I founded Product Hunt and now invest in early-stage startups out of Weekend Fund.
Prior to that, I helped write Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products and worked in product in the gaming industry.
I worked in Product Management since the beginning of my professional career nearly a decade ago with startups as small as 1 person (me!) to as large as 120.
One of the most underrated skills and competitive advantages in a startup is community-building. From the beginning, we put community first at Product Hunt to create the place for people to gather and discuss the latest in tech.
I've written over 150 essays, many of which are featured and quoted in Forbes, Fast Company, and The Next Web. Visit http://medium.com/@rrhoover for all my writing.
I also co-created Startup Edition years ago to bring blogging founders, hackers, and designers together to share their learnings to a single question each week.
Ryan is brilliant! He gave me great advice on building a user community for my startup. He highlighted the variables that would lead to building a strong community in the industry we are in. This wasn't my first call with him. I am going to reach out to him again, as his advice is always spot on!
Ryan was super helpful on the call. He patiently listened to me and gave some excellent feedback and suggestions! I've got some great points to work on.
Got amazing insights from Ryan regarding the startup Im working on. Thanks a ton!
Ryan is the best
Ryan really takes the time to talk through specifics and get a general understanding of strengths and opportunities. Highly recommend a conversation for an outsiders perspective.
Ryan is very knowledgeable and supportive. Ryan brings a unique perspective as an investor and former Product Manager. He took the time out to review my SaaS product idea doc ahead of the call and distil his thoughts. Great product and business insight. Highly recommended.
This call with Ryan was great. He gave us several unique approaches to test, and provided perspectives from his years of experience in this space that likely saved us a considerable amount of wasted time and money. Excellent call and highly recommended.
Just had a great call with Ryan. Really appreciate him taking the time. Got some actionable insight and new strategies for identifying markets and validating concepts. Definitely recommended!
Ryan answered my questions methodically and I got exactly what I was hoping for. Thanks!
Just had an hour long in-depth conversion with Ryan regarding early-stage fundraising, community-centric platforms, and strategies for user growth.
Ryan has a wealth of knowledge around these topics. Not only would he offer a great perspective to my answers, but he also included examples and provided thought-provoking suggestions. Talking to Ryan was meaningful and something we could apply right away to improve our chances of succeeding as a startup team. This call made me a better founder.
Incredible call with Ryan. Appreciate him!
