Ryan Hoover

Hoover is from Eugene, Oregon, in the United States, and at 14 worked in a video game store his father ran. After college and a brief stint in Portland, Oregon, he moved to San Francisco.⁠[1][1][1]

In 2013, Hoover was a product manager at the mobile gaming company PlayHaven. On the morning of November 6 that year, he spent about 30 minutes putting together an email list on Linkydink, invited friends to recommend new products with him, and called it Product Hunt; he said the idea came from friends in Silicon Valley often talking about new products while he could not find a place online to discuss them. The list only got around 200 subscribers, but the feedback was very positive.⁠[2][3][4][4][4]

Over Thanksgiving that year, Hoover teamed up with product designer Nathan Bashaw on a first version of the website, which Bashaw put together in five days; a week later it became a public website. The site let users submit product links, upvote, and comment, with each day forming its own leaderboard.⁠[2][4][4][4][4]

By early 2014, Hoover had quit his job to work on Product Hunt full time. He raised a $1 million seed round through Y Combinator; before that, after seeking advice from Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian and Garry Tan, then a partner at Y Combinator, he applied to Y Combinator, and he graduated from the accelerator in the summer of 2014.⁠[2][5][5][5]

In October 2014, less than a year after launch, Product Hunt announced a $6.1 million Series A round led by Andreessen Horowitz, in which Alexis Ohanian also invested. The company had no monetization plan at the time; as of April 2015, Hoover still said the site’s rise in influence was more important than revenue for now.⁠[3][6][2][2]

On February 5, 2015, Product Hunt won the “best new startup” award at the 8th Annual Crunchies, hosted by TechCrunch and VentureBeat, beating runner-up Shyp.⁠[6][6]

By March 2016, Product Hunt had a staff of 23 people in 10 time zones, and the site had expanded beyond tech to include games, podcasts, and books. The platform also came under some scrutiny over how users were given posting privileges and what it took for a product to land on the front page; Hoover said transparency was paramount and that people who post something they have invested in should disclose that conflict of interest directly.⁠[5][5][5][5]

In August 2016, Product Hunt partnered with Amazon on a specially curated section, taking a slice of the earnings from each sale; Hoover said at the time that the company did not need to be profitable right away.⁠[1][1][1]

In December 2016, AngelList acquired Product Hunt; the price was not disclosed, and numerous sources familiar with the terms put it at around $20 million, roughly the same as the valuation at its late-2014 financing. Hoover had spent the previous four months talking with AngelList’s Naval RavikantNaval RavikantNaval Ravikant is an entrepreneur and angel investor and a co-founder of AngelList. Early on he co-founded the review site Epinions; he and Babak Nivi later grew AngelList out of the startup-fundraising blog Venture Hacks, and he co-founded the cryptocurrency hedge fund MetaStable Capital and Spearhead, which backs founders to make angel investments. His views on startups and life were compiled into the book The Almanack of Naval Ravikant.Open the full entry about what an acquisition would look like; he said the company was selling because it needed help turning its momentum into a real business, and that building a revenue stream would require a whole new focus within the company and a lot more resources. Product Hunt did not have a real revenue stream at the time, and some of its money-making ideas, such as connecting users with job openings at startups, were things AngelList was already doing. After the acquisition he continued to run Product Hunt as its own brand.⁠[7][7][7][8][7][7][7][7]

In 2017, Hoover used AngelList’s Angel Funds platform to set up the early-stage investment fund Weekend Fund. An SEC filing in August 2017 showed the fund at $3 million; his first fund had originally targeted $1 million. In September that year, announcing the fund, he wrote: “The next big thing is being built on nights and weekends.”⁠[3][9][3]

In November 2019, Weekend Fund raised $10 million for its second fund, with limited partners including Marc Andreessen, Chris Dixon, Hunter Walk, Kevin Rose, Garry Tan, and Eric Ries. The fund does not lead investments but writes small checks as a participant in early financings, with a particular interest in audio and voice products, tools for remote work, and low-code projects.⁠[10][10][10][10][10][10]

In October 2020, Hoover stepped down as CEO of Product Hunt. He said that after seven years it had become a little draining, and he had started waking up not feeling as energized as he used to.⁠[3][3][3]

In 2021, Weekend Fund closed its third fund, at $21 million, with more than 350 limited partners.⁠[3][11]

As of October 2026, Weekend Fund writes checks of $250,000 to $500,000 into early-stage startups around the world, with more than 400 founders and operators as limited partners; its portfolio includes Deel, MoonPay, and Function Health.⁠[12][12][12][12][12]

Hoover helped write Hooked, a book on how to build habit-forming products; he has also built tools and newsletters for founders and investors such as Rolodexer, Signature Block, and Fast Round.⁠[13][13][13][13][13]

Product Hunt: Official website: https://www.producthunt.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[13]

Weekend Fund: Official website: https://weekend.fund/ (opens in a new window).⁠[12]

Personal website: https://ryanhoover.me/ (opens in a new window)⁠[13]

X: Public account: https://x.com/rrhoover (opens in a new window)⁠[13]

LinkedInLinkedInLinkedIn is a social networking platform for professionals. It was founded in 2002 by Reid Hoffman and others, launched in 2003, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2011; after Microsoft acquired it for approximately $26.2 billion in 2016, it became a wholly owned Microsoft subsidiary. Its revenue comes from membership subscriptions, advertising, and recruitment solutions.Open the full entry: Public profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanrhoover/ (opens in a new window)⁠[13]