Product Hunt Doesn’t Sell Products — It Sells Community
A Very Telling Thread
Earlier today, I came across a post on Medium by Product Hunt CEO Ryan Hoover. Simply titled with a captioned quote, “The world doesn’t need another blogging platform. But I did.” is Hoover’s response to a question he posed in the thread of a new PH product, Buffalo.
The product in question is yet another blogging platform, the necessity of which Hoover muses on. The subsequent series of responses between Hoover and Buffalo founder Drew Wilson is brilliant.
Hoover first posits that another blogging platform might be overkill, as he’s even more inclined to use Medium than his own blog simply because of its ease and reach/social engagement.
Notice that Hoover began the entire thought with a positive comment — that he liked the clean design. Already a high note has been struck. His subsequent statements are made from the point of view of his own opinion, and thus are disarming, rather than aggressive.
Wilson’s response is equally brilliant.
In one fell swoop, Wilson answered Hoover’s thought with his own disarming postulation. He’s not defensive in the least; simply enthusiastic to give a brief overview of what he likes best about his product, and why he thinks it’s different. Beyond that, though, his tone and diction clearly illustrate his desire for a product like the one he’s built. He even concedes that Hoover is essentially right, and that the world doesn’t need another blogging platform. But those three words — ”But I did” — would make any reader excited to interact with such an honest and positive personality.
Hoover’s second response was much more terse:
What this tells me is that I was right when I tweeted this last week:
It’s Not About the Blogging
I use a number of blogging platforms (Medium, WordPress, etc.) because I love writing and reading what others have to say. And while I most certainly will check out Buffalo after reading the comments on PH, in the end, this entire exchange wasn’t about the blogging platform at all. Not really.
The exchange — deeper, below the surface — is really about and a testament to the kind of community that Hoover and the rest of the Product Hunt team have built. They don’t sit up on top of their mountain acting with God-like hubris, deciding what will and won’t be popular (though, with the popularity of PH, one could argue that they could if they wanted to). Rather, they encourage discussion throughout their network, and concede that their tastes and opinions do indeed come from personal preference. I have yet to see any post by a PH team member that purports to “know better” than any of the product makers or users on PH.
This lack of arrogance is exceedingly palpable — people notice. It’s what makes Product Hunt a real community rather than a forum. A forum has moderators and editors who have the final say. And while PH does employ some extent of moderation when choosing products for the front page (and how could they not, with so many products posted every day), they don’t condone or foster any sense of superiority within the community.
Product Hunt Sells Community
Product Hunt is called Product Hunt (I assume) because people post new products on it (duh). But they’re not selling products; they’re selling community. They’re selling a level playing field so open that the team members who built it continue to engage in conversations with their users. And they don’t need to be “right;” they don’t need to have the last say, or come out looking like product soothsayers.
Product Hunt will continue to succeed because of this dynamic. It wouldn’t even matter if their product-content base dried up tomorrow; the people who have come to love the community would find something new to post there. It could end up as Healthcare Hunt, or Garden Hunt, or maybe Airplane Hunt. The products on it would be relevant insofar as the core sense of community remained intact. And I expect it will.
“Why? Because we can.” — An Artist’s Perspective
Hoover capped off his Medium post with this:
This tells me two things.
First, Hoover (and the rest of the PH team, I assume) won’t tolerate dynamics of superiority or condescension that would undoubtedly taint the PH community.
Secondly, by way of using the example of a new drummer experimenting with his first skins, he illustrates the notion that he sees the PH community (product makers as well as users) as artists. This statement explains away any necessity there might otherwise be to explain why someone made something. Hoover’s statement makes that irrelevant. Artists create for the sake of creation, and they learn new things from the process every time they do it. Product Hunt’s community is at its core a community of product artists, therefore the question of “why?” is no longer relevant. Why? Because we can.
My gut tells me that’s exactly how Product Hunt started, if you look deep enough below the surface. Hoover started a product mailing list. Why? Because he could, and he wanted to. Everything else is irrelevant (even the success). Artists are artists because that’s how they see the world. Clearly the same is true for Product Hunters.
Find me on Twitter @adammarx13 and let’s talk music, tech, and business!
Originally published at adammarxsmind.wordpress.com on May 14, 2015.
