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Before founding @ProductHunt, @rrhoover worked as a product manager at a gaming startup for three years.
He contributed to scaling the startup from a team of 10 to a multi-million-dollar revenue generating, 100 person team.
A thread of 30 lessons he learned along the way.
He contributed to scaling the startup from a team of 10 to a multi-million-dollar revenue generating, 100 person team.
A thread of 30 lessons he learned along the way.
1. Don’t be so clever. Obvious is usually the better product decision.
2. Have a vision and thesis of the future but don’t overshoot the market, ignoring what people ask for today.
3. Error on over-communication (easier said than done).
4. There will always be low hanging fruit but the ripest is often further away, harder to reach and see
5. Product complexity isn’t just a technical burden but an education hurdle for customers and new hires. Just because it’s easy to implement doesn’t mean it isn’t costly.
6. Recognize we have a bias for hiring people like ourselves. Diversity is good.
7. Hire people that intimidate you.
8. Make ownership and responsibilities clear.
9. Build a culture of accountability.
10. Not every decision can or needs to be defended with data.
11. Intuition is underrated.
12. It’s natural to feel under-qualified, in over your head in startups. That may be true but also recognize the Impostor Syndrome. It’s generally better to be overconfident than under-confident.
13. Momentum is key. Stagnation of innovation and constant negativity is draining and demoralizing.
14. State the obvious, especially if it’s uncomfortable.
15. Sometimes it’s ok (and unavoidable) to accumulate tech debt but make it a strategic decision, not a surprise.
16. Fire quickly. There’s a reason this advice has become cliche.
17. Who you hire ultimately defines your culture
18. The people that got you to phase A may not be the right people for phase B.
19. Heroes — team members that do most if the work and hold most of the knowledge in a particular domain — are amazing and a huge liability. Heroes don’t scale.
20. Have fun but maintain a sense of urgency and thirst.
21. Celebrate awesomeness all the time. Especially the small things.
22. It’s far better to be vocal and controversial than quiet and safe.
23. The last 5% often makes all the difference. Follow through.
24. Timing can be your best friend or worst enemy.
25. Engage and include engineering very early in the product design process.
26. In the words of Kanye, “Everything I’m not, made me everything I am.” If you’re saying “no” infrequently, you’re probably making bad product decisions.
27. Product design and usability is important for any product. B2B companies don’t get a pass. They serve people too.
28. Stay positive. Negativity is a cancer that will spread.
29. Stop hating on competitors. Learn from them.
30. Do “shitty” work. We naturally tend to prioritize the things we like to do over the things we should do.
Note by Ryan Hoover:
"As with anything I write, take my advice with healthy skepticism. It’s all about context and admittedly these quick notes lack much of that. This record of learnings is written for myself more than anyone else."
"As with anything I write, take my advice with healthy skepticism. It’s all about context and admittedly these quick notes lack much of that. This record of learnings is written for myself more than anyone else."
