The Surprising Way One Of The Most Popular Silicon Valley Founders Built His Network

Ryan Hoover hates the word networking. The 28-year-old founder of product recommendation site Product Hunt, Hoover moved to San Francisco from Portland, Oregon in 2010. A Silicon Valley outsider, Hoover relied heavily on social media and blogging to get connected in the startup scene.

“I wasn’t strategically doing any of this,” he told me a few months ago on the rooftop of Product Hunt’s office in downtown San Francisco. “I hate the word networking because it feels cold and transactional. I blogged because I enjoyed it and I was learning. It happened to pay off with Product Hunt.”

Despite his resistance toward the word, Hoover -- ironically -- has a network in Silicon Valley that everyone wants to be in. Hoover’s Product Hunt, a platform to recommend products, games and more, is now widely considered the place to discover the next big thing in tech. The site curates mostly unknown products and startups and lets members vote on, comment and discuss their favorites. The result is a site with more than $7 million in funding that gives entrepreneurs another avenue to get discovered and find venture backing. Hoover has the likes of Silicon Valley elites like Kevin Rose, Ashton Kutcher and Dave Morin visiting daily.

Product Hunt’s rapid rise in populatity has led to the similar rise of Hoover’s reputation. Since launching the site in 2013, Hoover has grown the platform to also be a destination to discover games and books. When I told people that I was meeting with Hoover, a few mentioned to me that Hoover’s real competition is Amazon and that Bezos and Co. are creating a competing product.

True or not, it’s not bad for a startup to suddenly be discussed as an Amazon threat. Hoover, however, won’t dwell on the success. “No one respects anyone for being egotistical,” he said bluntly. “I don’t think that being egotistical is in my personality...You don’t gain anything by being egotistical, unless it is for show, like Kayne [West.]”

As the interview went on, Hoover discussed taking Product Hunt from an idea to a platform, the tech scene in San Francisco and his plans for scaling the company moving forward.

Edited excerpts:

Caroline Fairchild: What was your initial inspiration for Product Hunt?

Ryan Hoover: Product Hunt started as a simple idea. I wanted an easy way to share products with other people. It is something we do all the time the way we talk about whether we watched Game of Thrones that week or the Warriors game that day. But when it comes to product, there was no place online for those conversations. Or there is, but it is bifurcated across all these different channels. An email was the easiest way to start. I’m not an engineer and email is actually really easy from an engagement perspective: It is easy to consume and it is already a part of your daily routine. I figured, let’s create an email list. So we did that, and then built the website from there.

CF: How did you build an audience for yourself before Product Hunt was even formed?

RH: A lot of successful companies started with someone who had an audience or a network to start off with. For me, it was tweeting and blogging and all that stuff, but it was also putting together brunches with ten founders because I like to bring together cool people. I also answer people’s emails and am really personable. Doing that consistently over time, you start to build relationships with people. Some of them are very distant: You are on Twitter and you email back and forth. Others are closer with people in San Francisco that I see frequently. I also used to read a lot of blogs and posts from other founders. I would read a lot and share a lot and tag those people. It wouldn’t be just a headline with a tag. It would be something that either demonstrated that I read it or added my own perspective. Otherwise you look like a bot. By doing that consistently with this relatively small world of startups, people start to recognize you. Then people start tweeting at you and tweets turn to direct messages which turn into in-person meetings.

CF: Why do you think traditional networking is perceived to be so transactional?

RH: Part of it is this perception that you have to hustle yourself into getting investment. They think they have to be really persistent. The truth is, yes you do need to be really persistent sometimes, but the better way of going about it is thinking super long term by building those relationships before you even have a product to sell. Also, thinking about helping people in some way. That can be as small as introducing them to someone to reading their blog post and sharing it. I think a lot of people come into this world and they have a product and they pitch it. Sometimes that isn’t the right way.

CF: Was there a moment when you knew Product Hunt was going to be huge?

RH: We turned the email into a website a month after it started. It had organic and natural growth while we were still working on it as a side project. After three or four months, I had to decide what I was going to do with it. I didn’t see any startups I wanted to join either. A lot of it was thinking to myself, 'Do I want to work on this idea for 10 years?' That’s a question you have to ask yourself before you take any money. You can’t just give it back. When you take a job you can quit. For me, I can’t really do that. I have a lot of people that are dependent on me. I also asked myself what Product Hunt could become in the long term. I had an answer for that, so I felt like I could check that box as well. I joined Y Combinator to try and raise money so we could bring people on and build a team.

CF: How are you thinking about scaling your business?

RH: My job is to hire myself out of a job in some ways, which is weird. I am frankly learning. I have never managed a team before now, so I am learning a lot about that. My personality is very hands on and I want to do everything and I am learning more and more to let go. To do that, I need to make sure we have the right people that I trust. It is about building a solid team that I trust and respect and also making sure that the culture is moving in the right direction. Also, my background is in product, but over time I need to do less of things like writing the copy on the website so I can focus on longer term goals. That shift from the day to day stuff is going to be a transition for the next six months to a year for me.

CF: How have you taught yourself to lead others?

RH: Steven Sinofsky, who is on the board, is great because he has tons of experience in the things I have no experience in. He has managed a massive company and has several years of experience in people management. He has been incredibly helpful in guiding me through firing people, which is the worst part of the job, and thinking about what type of roles we should hire for now.  [Editor’s Note: Want to learn from Sinofsky, too? You can see all of his posts here.]

CF: How do you fire someone?

RH: Hopefully, it’s not a surprise to both parties. If it is, then often times there is something wrong with something that I did. It is about being honest and having those difficult conversations before that happens. You need to say what you are expecting and what is not being delivered. Giving people the opportunity to save face is important. Giving them the opportunity to not feel like a failure, because sometimes it isn’t even their fault. They may not be the right person for the role or the company at that time.

CF: What is your big vision for Product Hunt?

RH: When we looked at Product Hunt in the beginning, we realized we had this nice niche capturing the tech community and this nice feed of tech products being curated and sourced. There is a greater and greater need for a service like that. If you look at almost any product category, there is more and more being created. There are more books being self-published. Games are exploding thanks to new distribution channels. News is blowing up because everyone is writing. Music as well. There is so much that is being created. People love these categories as well. I love music and am geeking out on new music every day. Some people love books and they will read three a week. I have a friend who loves photography and goes and takes pictures of the moon. There is huge creation happening, there is a huge audience that loves to find the best of that category. So this model of community I think can scale to anything. The idea is how do we take what we learned in tech and then apply it to these other categories over time.

CF: What is your impression of the startup scene here?

RH: What I love about San Francisco [culture] is that is it very much pay it forward. I was a no namer when I met guys like Andrew Chen who are very well known. I’ve learned that there is a celebrity aspect surrounding big startup CEOs or founders. People think to themselves when they see these people, 'How do they do what they do, they are so amazing.' But the truth is, everyone is figuring it out and there are so many variables in startup life that you have no control over. You have to understand that it is complete chaos on the inside no matter how cool it looks on the outside. This makes me more confident in meeting these people, because I realize that they aren’t that different than I am.

CF: How do you escape the scene?

RH: I’ve started to get really into live music. I went to Coachella for the first time this year. It is pretty diverse. I have been to Outside Lands. I had a blast because I went with a really good group of friends. Since then I have been really into live music. It’s fun. I listen to more music now lately. I am more introverted. I can be extroverted for a certain period of time, but I get exhausted when I am in crowds of people for an extended period of time.  

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For more posts from LinkedIn's New Economy Editor Caroline Fairchild, click the follow button at the top of this post and follow her on Twitter here.