MFM x Trends - Ryan Hoover of Product Hunt Breaks Down the Biggest Opportunities He Sees

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
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**Sam Parr** (0:30)
Hello, everyone. This is Sam Parr from The Hustle and My First Million. If you're hearing this, I hope you've already heard an episode and you know who I am. So I'm gonna get past that. So today we have a special episode. This one's for Trends members only, but we do these things a bunch and we don't always announce them. But for this one, I wanted to share it with you all and give a little bit of it for free. So you can listen to the first 20, 30 minutes of it. And then after that, you'll have to sign up for Trends to hear the rest. I know we are such a tease, but there's a ton of value early on and that's what we're trying to give to you for free. So if you want to hear the rest, go to trends.co and you could hear it.
But today we have Ryan Hoover on the podcast and Ryan Hoover is a friend of mine because we used to live near each other in San Francisco and Ryan Hoover started this great company called Product Hunt, producthunt.com.
It started as a project. I was actually with him the day before it launched and it was a little side project. He had where people would post products on their website and I thought it was a horrible idea and it completely worked and was a huge hit and people love it. And the reason why I had him come on the podcast is because Ryan has seen probably, Product Hunt is probably four years old now. He's seen a ton of products launch off of Product Hunt and now he has a venture capital firm that he runs. And so he's got really, really, really good insight and intel into what he thinks is gonna be popular, what he thinks is gonna blow up before most people even know that the particular company exists. And he's got a good eye for things. And so in this podcast, we break down four different categories that he thinks are going to explode. And he gives examples of each company and explains why he thinks it's gonna be big. So listen up. Here it is. Let's get to it.
So right now I'm talking to Ryan Hoover. It's three o'clock on February 4th.
The leak of our deal went out yesterday about four o'clock. And so yeah, it was a little nutty. We're gonna do it on Monday.

**Ryan Hoover** (2:21)
They always get leaked. We had a leak of our Series A Product Hunt back in the day. And I was so scared because it was like the term sheet was signed, but it wasn't done.
And it sounds like yours has been done, done, though.

**Sam Parr** (2:32)
It closes Monday, but everything's signed.

**Ryan Hoover** (2:35)
All right.

**Sam Parr** (2:35)
So similar boat. But we're all, I mean, everything's fine. But who do you think did it?

**Ryan Hoover** (2:39)
Leaked your news?

**Sam Parr** (2:40)
Who do you think leaked yours?

**Ryan Hoover** (2:41)
Oh, leaked mine?

**Sam Parr** (2:41)
No, yours.

**Ryan Hoover** (2:42)
That's a good question. I never found out. Alexia at TechCrunch when she was there, she's the one that wrote about it. And we now become good friends. And even the day before she published it, she texted me asking for like a comment. And of course, I was like, I don't know what to say. I don't know, though. I don't know who leaked it. If you're out there, if you're listening to this podcast and you leaked it, just let me know. I'm not going to be mad. I'm just curious.

**Sam Parr** (3:01)
Wait, so you wouldn't be mad if I when I find out, I think I found out a little bit. I get angry.

**Ryan Hoover** (3:05)
I would have been angry back then. But now it's I was like, what, six and a half years ago. Time has passed. So I'm OK.

**Sam Parr** (3:11)
So let me do like a short introduction. But basically, Ryan Hoover started this company called Product Hunt, which was a big deal. It still is a big deal. He's since sold it to AngelList. Now he has a fund. Wait, do you call it The Weekend? What's your fund's name?