#112 - Ryan Hoover and Dalton Caldwell

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#112 - Ryan Hoover and Dalton Caldwell

Y Combinator Startup Podcast

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