In this episode Justin Kan, partner at Y Combinator and founder of Justin.tv, Twitch, Exec, and Socialcam joins us. Justin shares tips for hopeful YC applicants, the motivation behind his new EDM music discovery site, and impressions of this renewed interest in livestreaming video. Listen in.

P.S. Here's a pic of the original Justin.tv broadcasting machine, as taken from our "recording studio" at Twitch.

This week Ben Rubin (CEO, Meerkat) and Josh Elman (Partner, Greylock) join us to discuss the backstory of Meerkat and the future of livestreaming. Of course, we broadcasted the episode live on Meerkat, sporting lovely yellow swag. Listen in.

P.S. Want a Meerkat shirt? There are a few more days left to buy one on Teespring.

Ben Parr, former Mashable co-editor, investor, and now author, just released his first book, Captivology. We chat about how to drive awareness for your product, advice for those looking to break into the startup world, and magical apps that save time. Listen in.

This week Jason Calacanis joins us on the show to chat about next week's LAUNCH Festival (including the Product Hunt AMA stage), technology's influence in building empathy, and qualities he looks for in founders he invests in. Listen in and we'll see many of you next week at the conference!

This week, Secret's David Byttow and Sara Haider join us at Product Hunt HQ to chat about the big redesign of their anonymous communication app, why their co-founder left the company, and David reveals his deep, dark LARP'ing past. Listen in.

Last week I chatted with Perri Gorman about community and Product Hunt at Startup Grind in sunny Redwood.

Here are a few tweets from those in the crowd:

@rrhoover to entrep: Stay involved w/ community (meetups). Only 4% of @ProductHunt users are in BayArea #StartupGrind pic.twitter.com/1QDIc9oDmG

— Startup Grind Boise (@StartupGrindBoi) February 11, 2015

"It's very much a pay it forward long game" @rrhoover at Startup Grind presentation on Silicon Valley culture.

— Sarah Mishkin (@sarahmishkin) February 11, 2015

Yay @rrhoover! Love how he's dispelling the overnight success view that people of think about startups. #StartupGrind pic.twitter.com/NAAiu5AvAo

— Bianca L. St.Louis (@beLaurie) February 11, 2015

Yesterday Jason Calacanis, Danielle Morrill and I chatted about Snapchat Discover, AR/VR, and trolls on This Week in Startups. As a long-time viewer, it's an honor to be on the show again (previous episodes here and here).

This week we're joined by the infamous Startup L Jackson. For years he/she's tweeted their candid, often humorous take on the startup industry, behind a veil of mystery. In this episode, SLJ shares his/her opinions on diversity in the tech industry, apps he/she uses, and reveals who he/she is not. Listen in.

Last week Cloe, Siri's smarter sister, launched on Product Hunt. The unique, SMS-based Q&A service captured the attention of the community and the shortly afterward TechCrunch's Sarah Buhr, added to the conversation.

One of the founders, Chase Hidlebrand, was in town so we invited him over for a quick podcast at our new office in lovely San Francisco. Listen in.

UPDATE: Unfortunately, Snapchat shut this down shortly after I originally published this piece. I understand why, but I miss it.

I fell in love with Mindie the moment I created my first 10-second music video. Since its launch just over a year ago, the team has made several thoughtful improvements including slow/fast motion video captures, hollywood-style photo filters, and private sharing. A few weeks ago Greg, one of the co-founders, introduced me to my new favorite feature: the ability to post mindies as Snapchat stories.

How to Feel Badass on Snapchat

As an active user of both apps, I immediately downloaded the beta. After creating a mindie, share to Snapchat option is presented on the confirmation screen. Simply enter your Snapchat username and password and your beautiful music video will be posted to your story.

Since discovering this, I’ve shared dozens of mindies on Snapchat, like this:

And this:

And this:

As a result, several people following my stories, messaged me asking me how they too could obtain these wizardry powers. A few friends even snapcashed me a dollar (thanks, Phil and Abram):

I’ll be here all night (username: rrhoover) 👊 @philtoronto pic.twitter.com/fb0GX62v67

— Ryan Hoover (@rrhoover) December 24, 2014

Snapchat: A New Acquisition Channel

Over a year ago I wrote about how Mindie makes you feel badass and this is another demonstration of that. These unique and unexpected Snapchat stories are a great opportunity for Mindie to grow its use base. Secrets are fun and sharing them is even more rewarding (see this essay on easter egg marketing), as those “in the know” share Mindie with friends.

Furthermore, Snapchat’s large and growing user base provides a fruitful and relatively nascent acquisition channel for product creators to reach a new audience the same way Instagram leveraged Facebook by making it easy to share beautiful photos with its millions of users. Could the next Instagram sprout through Snapchat?

I’m interested to see how others use the Snapchat platform, particularly snapcash payments, and how Evan Spiegel and team encourage or squash these integrations.

Check out Mindie and if you like music, follow my stories (I’m rrhoover, snapcash accepted). ;)

Last month Forbes published, Why Ryan Hoover’s Product Hunt Is More Addictive Than Hacker News. It was a great article but the title made me squirm[1]. I’m just one part of Product Hunt — my teammates and our investors deserve equal credit. It’s important to me that the entire team feels appreciated and realizes they too are responsible for its success (or failure).

I can’t control how people describe Product Hunt in the press and to their friends, but the subtleties of my words can influence public opinion.

Here are some words and phrases that make me cringe and alternatives I use:

"Employees" —> "Teammates"

"Work for me" —> "Work with me"

"My team" —> "Our team"

I urge other founders to be cognizant of how they speak to and about their team. It may seem insignificant but diction plays an important role in people's perception of your character, and in reality, it’s often a true reflection of how one thinks.

Last week I spoke at CMX Summit, a conference on community-building, led by my buddy, David Spinks. I shared a bit about the Product Hunt story and things we did to grow our humble email list into a community of hundreds of thousands of product-loving supporters.

I spoke about delight to the crowd of 350 attendees at San Francisco’s Pier 35. Since the beginning we’ve tried to surprise people and (at the risk of sounding cheesy) inspire a smile.

We welcomed people that signed up on Product Hunt with a personal email, including a GIF on occasion.

We highlighted those that contributed thoughtfully to the discussion, in our email digest and on Twitter.

But sometimes surprises inspire the most delight.

Delightful Surprises

The night before we announced our Series A funding, Erik came up with a genius idea. In our email announcement, we included a link to a form, asking people for their mailing address. We didn’t say what we were going to send.

Nearly 4,000 people submitted their info and with MailLift’s help, we shipped the first thousand letters and a “meowvelous” kitty sticker.

On Wednesday, tweets began to pour in. Our handwritten letters were being delivered across the globe, from San Francisco to the United Kingdom. As I’m writing this, four more tweets appeared from recipients, expressing their appreciation with an accompanying photo. Here are just a few:

Hey @ProductHunt thanks for the note & the meowvalous sticker, and hello from @Oyster HQ! pic.twitter.com/M4JMtpHo3V

— Allison Esposito (@allisonveronica) November 14, 2014

Gotta say I've never received a personal card from a website before. Thanks for posting @informantapp, @ProductHunt! pic.twitter.com/2p2Wn9ziFw

— Cameron Daigle (@camerondaigle) November 14, 2014

Nice surprise in the post from @ProductHunt today — thank you guys 😎 #personaltouch #meowvelous pic.twitter.com/e1b5hcK82J

— Craig Paterson (@craigcpaterson) November 14, 2014

I was having a crappy day... And then this was in the mailbox! @rrhoover @NikkiElizDemere @ErikTorenberg @ProductHunt pic.twitter.com/f5mSNm6rQI

— Kiki Schirr (@KikiSchirr) November 13, 2014

Yaay @producthunt - cards and kittens - classy customer service ;-) pic.twitter.com/zmK0kFwoG8

— Andrew McCluskey (@SimplyFriday) November 12, 2014

Hey @rrhoover @ProductHunt thanks!! All the way from SF to UK 😊 pic.twitter.com/gVrXQTmbXP

— Fred (@fredsoneya) November 14, 2014

Thanks for the mail @ProductHunt! Rocking the cat sticker on my bikecc @rrhoover pic.twitter.com/S49tnRgfky

— Aaron Wright (@aaronwright) November 14, 2014

Thanks for the mail @ProductHunt! Rocking the cat sticker on my bikecc @rrhoover pic.twitter.com/S49tnRgfky

— Aaron Wright (@aaronwright) November 14, 2014

Thanks a lot @ProductHunt @rrhoover , details that matter ;) pic.twitter.com/MB0IFZr61h

— Omar Pera (@ompemi) November 14, 2014

OH “That is the most badass sticker I’ve ever seen!” Thanks @ProductHunt pic.twitter.com/VjSE1OA4sU

— Ken Seals (@kenseals) November 13, 2014

I got a wonderful card (+sticker!) from the @ProductHunt folks in the mail yesterday. Thanks all! pic.twitter.com/LAOBy8AuRM

— Dan Loewenherz ⚡ (@dwlz) November 13, 2014

Proud to represent @ProductHunt! Thanks for the sticker @rrhoover pic.twitter.com/RvxVcZTfzf

— Steven Cutbirth (@SvenC) November 13, 2014

Worth It?

Someone at the CMX Summit asked me how we measure the effectiveness of these efforts. It’s hard to quantify but we know these bits of delight have helped cultivate a loyal community of people who have hunted great products and given us great ideas. These small things are important and regardless of its “ROI”, we’ll continue to try to delight those that (quite literally) make Product Hunt.

In this episode, Fast Company's Deputy Editor, David Lindsky, joins Ryan and Erik all the way from New York City. We chat about cord-cutting TV apps, fitness products, and the rise of notification-driven apps. Listen in.

Products mentioned:

Pluto.tv - Curated video programming

Sworkit - 5 minute "body weight" video workouts you can do anywhere

Power 20 - Badass workouts for busy people (iPhone)

Nudge - Klout for Healthy Living

Fiticle - Improve your workouts with animated GIFs

Reserve - A better dining experience. Pay effortlessly.

Ping - You're going to like me (new app by Secret)

Nuzzle - The super-easy way to see news from your friends

Newsle - News about your network

SwiftKey - The keyboard that learns from you.

Derp - Play sounds on your friends' phones

This week Erik Torenberg and I, Ryan Hoover, visited Sherpa Ventures/Foundry HQ to chat with Tina Sharkey (CEO, Sherpa Foundry) and Jason Shah (CEO, Do). We discussed productivity hacks, characteristics of startups Sherpa invests in, and the magic of voice dictation. Listen in, smiley face.

Products mentioned:

Do - Do helps people run productive meetings

Boomerang - The ultimate toolbox to control sending/receiving emails

Tinder - Tinder, now with #TinderMoments photos

Weave - Tinder for professionals nearby

Snapchat - Putting the Chat into Snapchat

Medium Embeds - Embed Medium stories, collections, & profiles on the web

Draft - Better writing software

Shyp - The easiest way to ship your stuff

Beepi - Next gen used car marketplace

Munchery - Wholesome meals in a snap