Outliers

In the mad, mad world of tech, discovering the next big thing is a holy grail for everyone – from investors to startup founders looking for their next pivot and even large tech companies hunting for the disruption in their core markets.

From a small email list launched in November 2013 by Ryan Hoover, ProductHunt has now helped discover over 100 million products with more than 100,000 new product launches on its platform.

In this week’s Outliers, we have for you a conversation with Hoover who talks about the ProductHunt journey, its $20 million acquisition by AngelList in 2016, and some deep lessons in building communities and keeping them alive.

Hoover, 31, eats, breathes and lives the ProductHunt community.

“I still love what I am doing and I still see so many opportunities to experiment and grow,” he says.

“I am really weird when I wake up in the morning, far too early like 4.45 am today. My mind starts turning on and truthfully, I want to get back to the bed, but my mind gets excited, starts working. Now, this is still stressful and I get frustrated... for me and my awesome girlfriend.”

P.S. How AngelList works? Look out for a set of deep conversations with folks at AngelList to be published on FactorDaily as an audio story soon.

image credit: (cc) Ken Yeung -- www.thelettertwo.com

In the mad, mad world of tech, discovering the next big thing is a holy grail for everyone – from investors to startup founders looking for their next pivot and even large tech companies hunting for the disruption in their core markets.

From a small email list launched in November 2013 by Ryan Hoover, ProductHunt has now helped discover over 100 million products with more than 100,000 new product launches on its platform.

In this week’s Outliers, we have for you a conversation with Hoover who talks about the ProductHunt journey, its $20 million acquisition by AngelList in 2016, and some deep lessons in building communities and keeping them alive.

Hoover, 31, eats, breathes and lives the ProductHunt community.

“I still love what I am doing and I still see so many opportunities to experiment and grow,” he says.

“I am really weird when I wake up in the morning, far too early like 4.45 am today. My mind starts turning on and truthfully, I want to get back to the bed, but my mind gets excited, starts working. Now, this is still stressful and I get frustrated... for me and my awesome girlfriend.”

P.S. How AngelList works? Look out for a set of deep conversations with folks at AngelList to be published on FactorDaily as an audio story soon.

image credit: (cc) Ken Yeung -- www.thelettertwo.com

Every time we spot a hugely successful entrepreneur (either multi-billion dollar exit or an IPO), there’s a rush to analyse what went behind the success and whether there’s a playbook that can be replicated to create more successful exits for startups. Everyone from investors to existing and wannabe entrepreneurs are looking for “deep insights” that will catapult their idea into the big league.

If you read some of the top learnings shared by Jyoti Bansal and even listen to the entire podcast, I bet you will get a feeling that none of this is something you haven’t heard before. However, if you can learn from Bansal’s insights by contextualising everything he says against his startup journey, the AppDynamics story, and so on, there’s a lot to learn.

One of the things that stayed with me since I had this conversation with him, for instance, is what he said about the kind of people he will hire for his next startups. “I will try and avoid hiring people who have been part of big exits.”

This is because exits and startup wealth creation also brings a certain comfort, risk averse nature. So whenever Bansal builds his next, he wants people with a lot more hunger than those who have already drank the nectar.

Every time we spot a hugely successful entrepreneur (either multi-billion dollar exit or an IPO), there’s a rush to analyse what went behind the success and whether there’s a playbook that can be replicated to create more successful exits for startups. Everyone from investors to existing and wannabe entrepreneurs are looking for “deep insights” that will catapult their idea into the big league.

If you read some of the top learnings shared by Jyoti Bansal and even listen to the entire podcast, I bet you will get a feeling that none of this is something you haven’t heard before. However, if you can learn from Bansal’s insights by contextualising everything he says against his startup journey, the AppDynamics story, and so on, there’s a lot to learn.

One of the things that stayed with me since I had this conversation with him, for instance, is what he said about the kind of people he will hire for his next startups. “I will try and avoid hiring people who have been part of big exits.”

This is because exits and startup wealth creation also brings a certain comfort, risk averse nature. So whenever Bansal builds his next, he wants people with a lot more hunger than those who have already drank the nectar.

Every time we spot a hugely successful entrepreneur (either multi-billion dollar exit or an IPO), there’s a rush to analyse what went behind the success and whether there’s a playbook that can be replicated to create more successful exits for startups. Everyone from investors to existing and wannabe entrepreneurs are looking for “deep insights” that will catapult their idea into the big league.

If you read some of the top learnings shared by Jyoti Bansal and even listen to the entire podcast, I bet you will get a feeling that none of this is something you haven’t heard before. However, if you can learn from Bansal’s insights by contextualising everything he says against his startup journey, the AppDynamics story, and so on, there’s a lot to learn.

One of the things that stayed with me since I had this conversation with him, for instance, is what he said about the kind of people he will hire for his next startups. “I will try and avoid hiring people who have been part of big exits.”

This is because exits and startup wealth creation also brings a certain comfort, risk averse nature. So whenever Bansal builds his next, he wants people with a lot more hunger than those who have already drank the nectar.

K Vaitheeswaran’s entrepreneurial journey lacks all the fanfare, glory and gyaan that make some of the most visible startup journeys of today, including Flipkart and Ola. It’s a story that underscores how lonely it’s to be a startup founder and how ugly the lows in the journey can get.

On the midnight of December 31, 2012, Vaitheeswaran opened the door of his house to find a bunch of drunk and abusive guys demanding monies his company Indiaplaza owed to several vendors.

“One of the reasons we all enjoy December 31 and look forward to January is because we believe it’s going to start something new and great,” he tells me.

“That day was the most depressing because all sorts of thoughts crossed my mind. I have no shame in saying the thoughts (of ending my life) did cross my mind. I didn’t even want to see January 2nd.”

“How much can you really take after you expose your family to all the abuse?”

“You realize then that perhaps becoming an entrepreneur is not worth anything,” he tells me.

I’ve always wanted to sit down with Vaithee, as people around him address him, for this conversation, especially after reading this brilliant story titled “Indiaplaza.com: How an Indian e-commerce firm ran out of cash” by Ashish K. Mishra. Vaithee’s book ‘Failing to Succeed’ is equally riveting.

Do listen and stay grounded, fellow entrepreneurs.

K Vaitheeswaran’s entrepreneurial journey lacks all the fanfare, glory and gyaan that make some of the most visible startup journeys of today, including Flipkart and Ola. It’s a story that underscores how lonely it’s to be a startup founder and how ugly the lows in the journey can get.

On the midnight of December 31, 2012, Vaitheeswaran opened the door of his house to find a bunch of drunk and abusive guys demanding monies his company Indiaplaza owed to several vendors.

“One of the reasons we all enjoy December 31 and look forward to January is because we believe it’s going to start something new and great,” he tells me.

“That day was the most depressing because all sorts of thoughts crossed my mind. I have no shame in saying the thoughts (of ending my life) did cross my mind. I didn’t even want to see January 2nd.”

“How much can you really take after you expose your family to all the abuse?”

“You realize then that perhaps becoming an entrepreneur is not worth anything,” he tells me.

I’ve always wanted to sit down with Vaithee, as people around him address him, for this conversation, especially after reading this brilliant story titled “Indiaplaza.com: How an Indian e-commerce firm ran out of cash” by Ashish K. Mishra. Vaithee’s book ‘Failing to Succeed’ is equally riveting.

Do listen and stay grounded, fellow entrepreneurs.

K Vaitheeswaran’s entrepreneurial journey lacks all the fanfare, glory and gyaan that make some of the most visible startup journeys of today, including Flipkart and Ola. It’s a story that underscores how lonely it’s to be a startup founder and how ugly the lows in the journey can get.

On the midnight of December 31, 2012, Vaitheeswaran opened the door of his house to find a bunch of drunk and abusive guys demanding monies his company Indiaplaza owed to several vendors.

“One of the reasons we all enjoy December 31 and look forward to January is because we believe it’s going to start something new and great,” he tells me.

“That day was the most depressing because all sorts of thoughts crossed my mind. I have no shame in saying the thoughts (of ending my life) did cross my mind. I didn’t even want to see January 2nd.”

“How much can you really take after you expose your family to all the abuse?”

“You realize then that perhaps becoming an entrepreneur is not worth anything,” he tells me.

I’ve always wanted to sit down with Vaithee, as people around him address him, for this conversation, especially after reading this brilliant story titled “Indiaplaza.com: How an Indian e-commerce firm ran out of cash” by Ashish K. Mishra. Vaithee’s book ‘Failing to Succeed’ is equally riveting.

Do listen and stay grounded, fellow entrepreneurs.

The first time I heard of LoveDoctor, a SnapChat-based counselling service for teenagers, women and even pre-teen kids seeking sex advice, I was blown away. Not just because it’s rare to find a savvy SnapChat user in my peer group, but the whole idea of serving such a real world need, unaddressed largely, fascinated me.

Few days ago, I emailed Avani Parekh asking for updates about LoveDoctor and checking if she would help me explore a deeper narrative on its evolution and the road ahead.

“Well, it’s not alive anymore,” she told me. Parekh who joined Sheroes last year, is now back in that discomforting zone where many startup ideas are born. She wants to revive LoveDoctor.

But this podcast is not just about LoveDoctor’s future. It’s about some hard entrepreneurial lessons on building a community on a new social platform and watching it fail to take off.

The first time I heard of LoveDoctor, a SnapChat-based counselling service for teenagers, women and even pre-teen kids seeking sex advice, I was blown away. Not just because it’s rare to find a savvy SnapChat user in my peer group, but the whole idea of serving such a real world need, unaddressed largely, fascinated me.

Few days ago, I emailed Avani Parekh asking for updates about LoveDoctor and checking if she would help me explore a deeper narrative on its evolution and the road ahead.

“Well, it’s not alive anymore,” she told me. Parekh who joined Sheroes last year, is now back in that discomforting zone where many startup ideas are born. She wants to revive LoveDoctor.

But this podcast is not just about LoveDoctor’s future. It’s about some hard entrepreneurial lessons on building a community on a new social platform and watching it fail to take off.