How Product Hunt got its users

Hoover did not start cold: he was blogging at ryanhoover.me to a loyal but modest following and was one of the most active members of Quibb, an invite-only network where founder Sandi MacPherson vetted every application by hand. His 6 Nov 2013 Quibb post read as a known regular sharing what he built, not a drive-by promo, which is why it was welcomed rather than flagged. No room like that yet?

done whenName three regulars in your target room who would recognise your handle on sight. If you cannot, you are still a stranger dropping a link.

Before any site existed he made a Linkydink group in about twenty minutes: invited startup friends dropped links into a shared list and everyone on it got one email a day. What he put in the room was a readable daily digest, not a landing page and not a waitlist. Build the smallest object that hands over the value on day one, with no code and no design work.

done whenCan you deliver your core value to 20 people this week using a shared doc, a spreadsheet or one recurring email? If it needs a build first, you are testing too late.

Reading was open, writing was not. Only handpicked people could submit products; as the homepage got noisy Hoover cut direct posting and made a member invite the only route to commenting and voting. Invites were sent as a public tweet to the invitee, so every new member arrived through someone's timeline. Give your first members a job nobody else can do, and make the invite itself the announcement.

done whenIs there anything in your product a member can do that a fresh signup cannot? If everyone gets identical rights at signup, there is nothing to earn and nothing worth sharing.

He ran the whole thing alone, awake at 5:30am scanning the homepage for typos and duplicate posts, answering comment threads himself, and tagging named people into discussions where they had something to add. Makers who turned up on their own launch got a green M beside their name. Reply to every comment personally until volume makes it physically impossible, then recruit two regulars to help.

done whenCount the comments in your own community you personally answered this week. If it is not all of them, you are running a feed, not a community.

Before the site shipped he sent InVision mockups of Product Hunt to the email list and asked what was wrong with them. After launch: a 25-person private brunch in New York for long-time users, open meetups, surprise stickers in the post. The people who shaped the screens became the people who defended the site in its own comment threads.

done whenHave you put your next unbuilt screen in front of ten users you can name? If your roadmap has never been seen by a real user, you have an audience, not a community.