The app is now available. These suggestions may help it become a hit

Ryan Hoover is the founder and CEO of Product Hunt. In the last issue of "Five Questions", Kevin Rose mentioned that Ryan is good at helping promote the company. So in this episode, Google Ventures talks with Ryan about how Product Hunt became so popular so quickly, and Ryan’s advice to founders on how to promote their products.

1. What is the key to attracting users’ attention on the Product Hunt platform? “It is critical that users understand your product positioning accurately. If users do not understand your product, they will not be interested.”
Product creators must be clear about who your target audience is. Your audience cannot be everyone. After clarifying your product’s audience, use brief communication to let users clearly understand your product so that they will be interested in your product. Ryan warns everyone not to focus too much on long-term visions, and it is better to communicate simply and clearly: "For your product, you have already thought about its development in the next five years, and you want to tell others about this grand vision. But in fact, you should describe your product to others very concisely. Maybe it sounds far from what you want to achieve in the future, but through description, users can accurately understand your product. The most important thing to promote a product is to tell others what you are doing simply and clearly."
2. Why did Product Hunt become popular so quickly?
“Because we have built an online community to connect closely with users”
Ryan Hoover built Product Hunt with just one user: himself. As his beloved product grew into a company, Product Hunt remained committed to the entrepreneurial enthusiasts and built a small, close-knit community for entrepreneurial enthusiasts around smart technology and new product discovery. The close connection brought by the community is an important reason for Product Hunt's success: "It is very difficult to create a product that can be used by everyone. I prefer to focus on a small aspect to create a product that interests enthusiasts first, rather than trying to attract everyone's attention."
3. How was the product discovered?
“Social plays a big role in how people discover new things. With millions of people posting, new things can be discovered.”
SEO is no longer the only way for products to be discovered. The way people communicate online has changed with the rise of social networking, with websites and networks allowing millions of people to share and post, playing a major role in how people find new products. "Most product discovery is done through interpersonal communication. People post content about new products through Twitter or Facebook to get more attention. The same is true for Product Hunt. Sharing and posting are very personal things. We hope that the product is very popular. On the Product Hunt platform, people are happy to share, and this interpersonal communication can exist for a long time."
4. How do you make product decisions?
“When you make product decisions, each product has a ton of features, and the hardest part is focusing on one aspect. And you can only use one aspect to make product decisions.”
When making product decisions, don’t just listen to your community’s needs — understanding the problems they’re trying to solve is fundamental. As a Product Hunt team, we need to observe the real behavior of users and figure out the difference between what people say and what they do. Here’s one example: “We noticed that people were using bookmarks or other tools to build a list of products they found on Product Hunt. We wondered, ‘What can we do to help them use Product Hunt more easily?’ That led us to create the Collections feature on the platform.”
5. What characteristics of applicants do you pay most attention to when recruiting ?
“I look for people who have already started a product or have started a company in the past.”
At a small company like Product Hunt, autonomy and curiosity are extremely important for every employee. Such companies need people who are truly interested in creating new things. Ryan is looking for people who have already started product production or have founded companies in the past: "They know what it feels like to start with nothing." (Text/Ryan Hoover translation/Tiger Sniff Network)