Why Startups Want This 28-Year-Old to Really Like Them
Ryan Hoover, founder and CEO at Product Hunt, at the company's office in San Francisco, on Feb. 4, 2015.
Photographer: David Paul Morris/BloombergThey came by the hundreds, spilling out of Ubers and Lyfts to wait in a line snaking for two blocks from the front door of Jones, a bar in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district. A passerby asked if a band was playing.
No, the draws were free beer, Ryan Hoover and Product Hunt, the hot arbiter of the coolness of the hundreds of apps, services and gadgets released in any given month. More than 3,700 people RSVP’d to an invitation Hoover posted on Facebook for his website’s first-anniversary party, a sidewalk-jamming testament to tech’s reign and Hoover’s particular brand of celebrity. Hip-hop artist Nas and New York Knicks forward Carmelo Anthony, both startup investors, are regular Product Hunt readers.