Podcast

How to launch and grow your product | Ryan Hoover of Product Hunt and Weekend Fund

Lenny Rachitsky, Ryan Hoover · Lenny's Podcast Free Intermediate

Ryan Hoover has watched more product launches than almost anyone through Product Hunt, and this conversation covers exactly your question: when companies should launch, what makes a launch actually work, and how to build momentum instead of a single spike. It's a grounded, tactical listen from someone whose whole career has been observing what separates a launch that lands from one that doesn't.

  • Momentum compounds: shipping and talking about it regularly attracts more of the same energy.
  • Building an audience before you need it makes every future launch land harder.
  • There's no single right moment to launch, there's a right moment for each specific thing you're announcing.
Open on lennysnewsletter.com ↗

It answers 3 questions

  1. How often should I be launching, is once a quarter too much?
  2. My co-founder wants a big coordinated launch, I want to just ship quietly and iterate. Who's right?
  3. Every launch I ask friends to upvote and share. Is leaning on my network for each launch going to burn it out?

Read with it

  1. The definitive talk that reframes launching from a one-shot event into a repeatable tactic, exactly this category's thesis. YC... YC Startup Library Video · ~25 min How to Launch (Again and Again) Kat Manalac (Y Combinator)
  2. The permission slip to recruit users by hand, do things manually, and deliver 'insanely great' experiences to your first few... paulgraham.com Essay · ~15 min read Do Things That Don't Scale Paul Graham
  3. Basecamp's battle-tested, opinionated system for shipping meaningful work in fixed cycles without endless backlogs, a primary... Basecamp / 37signals Book · free online book Shape Up: Stop Running in Circles and Ship Work that Matters Ryan Singer
  4. The official, primary-source guide straight from Product Hunt, it dispels myths and sets realistic expectations, unlike the sea... Product Hunt Article · guide / multi-page Product Hunt Launch Guide Product Hunt
  5. A punchy, contrarian classic on building a lean, sane, profitable company from the founders of Basecamp. It's the antidote to... 37signals Book · ~288 pages Rework Jason Fried & David Heinemeier Hansson
  6. This is the canonical source of the ship-ugly-first idea, the LinkedIn co-founder's own essay behind the line about being... LinkedIn Essay · About a 6 minute read If There Aren't Any Typos In This Essay, We Launched Too Late Reid Hoffman
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