Ryan Hoover
Founder & Investor at Product Hunt / Weekend Fund
Ryan Hoover is the founder of Product Hunt, former product manager, and full-time investor at Weekend Fund, known for his writing on building products and communities.
Dimension Profile
Key Themes
Episode Summary
Ryan Hoover opens up about the emotional reality of building Product Hunt — the anxiety, the mask of confidence founders wear, and the tension between transparency and protecting your team. He shares lessons from building one of the most influential product-discovery communities and his transition from founder to investor at Weekend Fund.
Leadership Principles
- → Being a CEO means putting on a mask of confidence while feeling anxiety and stress internally
- → You don't want to subject your team to the same anxiety you're feeling as a founder
- → Being 100% transparent as a leader isn't always the right answer — calibrate what you share
Notable Quotes
"That flutter in your stomach that you wake up with in the morning of just anxiety and stress and worry. Being a CEO or founder makes it slightly harder because you still have to put on this mask of confidence."
— On the emotional reality of being a founder that few people discuss openly
"You don't want to subject them to the same anxiety that you're feeling and be 100% transparent."
— On calibrating transparency as a leader
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