#112 - Ryan Hoover and Dalton Caldwell

About this episode

<p><a href="https://twitter.com/rrhoover">Ryan Hoover</a> is the founder of <a href="https://www.producthunt.com/">Product Hunt</a> which was in the Summer 2014 YC batch and was acquired by <a href="https://angel.co/">AngelList</a>. He also invests in startups through his <a href="https://weekend.fund/">Weekend Fund</a>.<br><br><a href="https://twitter.com/daltonc">Dalton Caldwell</a> is a Partner at YC where he runs admissions.<br><br>Ryan is on Twitter at <a href="https://twitter.com/rrhoover">@rrhoover</a>&nbsp;and Dalton is at <a href="https://twitter.com/daltonc">@daltonc</a>.<br><br>The YC podcast is hosted by <a href="https://twitter.com/craigcannon" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Craig Cannon</a>.</p><p><br>***<br><br><b>Topics</b><br><br>00:27 - Ryan's intro<br><br>00:52 - Dalton's intro<br><br>1:27 - Forming Product Hunt and applying to YC<br><br>5:17 - Product Hunt's growth rate when they applied to YC<br><br>6:27 - Raising money for the right reasons<br><br>9:42 - Maker communities<br><br>11:27 - Why raise money for Product Hunt?<br><br>13:12 - Having buzz during the batch<br><br>18:12 - Brex changing their idea during YC<br><br>20:17 - Pivoting into something you know well<br><br>21:32 - In retrospect, how would Ryan have advised himself around monetization?<br><br>28:27 - Trying to build out other verticals<br><br>34:27 - Don't act like you have infinite runway<br><br>35:57 - Creating urgency and developing products within AngelList<br><br>40:17 - Tips to launch on Product Hunt<br><br>45:07 - What Dalton looks for in applications<br><br>46:57 - Giving people the opportunity to start<br><br>48:47- What motivated Ryan to leave his job before Product Hunt<br></p>