????萊恩?胡佛是全美所有企業家艷羨的對象。許多初創公司摸爬滾打數年、燒掉數百萬美元的投資才能得到的認可度，胡佛的初創公司卻在短短九個月內就已牢牢在握。更讓人不忿的是，他做到這一切所憑借的，不過是一個抄襲社交新聞網站Reddit創意的粗劣網站，而且他的團隊只用了不到一個星期就搭建起了這個網站。但是這個名為Product Hunt的網站卻得到了硅谷最有影響力的權力掮客們的關注，最近更是從他們那里獲得了真金白銀的投資。

????像亨特?沃克、戴夫?麥克盧爾、大衛?蒂希、互聯網新聞博客Mashable創始人皮特?卡什莫爾等，這些風險投資人會利用Product Hunt來發現新產品；而丹尼斯?克羅利（Foursquare）、大衛?莫林（Path）、馬克?庫班（AXS TV）等創始人則會參與其中，討論自己的產品。該網站每月的絕對訪客達到了25萬人，并在過去一個月里，為各類產品總共輸送了170萬次的訪問量。網站推送的新聞通訊郵件讀者逾5.1萬人，點擊率達41%。

????有意思的是，那些每日精選的頂尖產品的出品方們紛紛表示，投資者和潛在合作伙伴紛沓而來，對他們傾注的興趣簡直足以將他們淹沒。已有數十名該網站的用戶利用該網站的API做成了各式各樣的衍生網絡工具。網站以每個月70%的速度保持著增長。各方創始人私下表示，在Product Hunt上發布消息已經取代科技博客TechCrunch，成為了他們更為青睞的公布產品上線的方式。

????那么胡佛是怎么做到這一切的？答案就是：好的時機加上若干電子郵件推送技巧，以及出色的社區建設能力，最后再借助一批形象正面的大師級人物的幫助。

????事實表明，科技界亟需一處新的聚集地，而Product Hunt的出現正好滿足了這一需求。長久以來，企業孵化器Y Combinator設立的網絡留言板Hacker News一直是硅谷各初創公司實際上的線上社區。今年上半年，Y Combinator的總裁薩姆?阿爾特曼就曾說過，他估計這個留言板上的用戶群體整體價值可能有5億美元。

????但是近幾年來，這處線上社區已經淪落為一處充斥著負面情緒的地方，不時還會出現一些帶有敵意的評論。上個月，知名風險投資家馬克?安德里森在這處留言板上詰問道，這里怎么從Y Combinator的討論板演變成了“任何YC公司相關帖下的第一條評論一定是有人在對該公司狂噴的討論板”。

????“這實在是種很神奇的轉變。”他寫道。

????Product Hunt并沒有打算在各方面與Hacker News反其道而行，但是就很多方面而言，它現在所扮演的卻正是這樣的角色。這里基本不是一個自由自在的匿名社區。該網站發展得十分謹慎，在胡佛及其團隊的精心策劃下，邀請了一批硅谷的影響力人士成為用戶并發表評論。其他人可以投票贊同某產品，但只有受邀用戶才能發表評論。由于評論者多為投資者、記者和科技界知名創始人這樣的公眾人物，他們更愿意收起自己的負面評論，而不是隨意亂噴。但是這種模式并不利于網站的拓展，因此胡佛決定，最佳的發展方式就是允許這些評論者邀請自己的朋友參與評論。

????Ryan Hoover is the envy of entrepreneurs around the country. Many startups toil for years, burning through millions of investment dollars, to get the kind of recognition Hoover’s startup has garnered in just nine months. What’s worse, he’s done it with a flimsy Reddit knock-off website his team built in less than a week. That site, called Product Hunt, has captured the attention, and as of today, the investment dollars, of Silicon Valley’s most influential power brokers.

????Venture investors like Hunter Walk, Dave McClure, David Tisch, and Mashable founder Pete Cashmore use Product Hunt to discover new products, and founders like Dennis Crowley (Foursquare), Dave Morin (Path), and Mark Cuban (AXS TV) have jumped in to discuss their products. The site has 250,000 monthly unique visitors and has sent 1.7 million visits to products in the last month. More than 51,000 people read the site’s newsletter with a 41% open rate.

????Anecdotally, the purveyors of the top products of each day report they’ve been flooded with inbound interest from investors and potential partners. Already dozens of members have hacked together Web tools based on the site’s API. The site grows by 70% each month. Founders are whispering that placement on Product Hunt has replaced TechCrunch as their preferred method of announcing their launch.

????So how did Hoover do it? Good timing, mixed with some email hustle and community-building prowess, topped off with a master class in positivity.

????As it turns out, the tech community was hungry for a new gathering place, and Product Hunt played directly into its desire. Hacker News, the message board of accelerator program Y Combinator, has long been the de facto online community for Silicon Valley startups. Earlier this year, Y Combinator’s president, Sam Altman, said he thought the message board might be with $500 million.

????But in recent years, the community has devolved into petty negativity and occasionally hostile commentary. Last month, the prominent venture capitalist Marc Andreessen took to the message board to ask how it had evolved from a Y Combinator discussion board to “the discussion board where the first comment on any post involving a YC company is reliably someone crapping on it.”

????“What an amazing shift,” he wrote.

????Product Hunt did not intend to be the anti-Hacker News, but in many ways that’s what it has become. It is hardly a freewheeling anonymous community. The site has grown very carefully, by inviting a group of Valley influencers curated by Hoover and his team to join and comment. Outsiders can up-vote products, but only invitees can comment. Because the commenters are mostly public-facing figures like investors, journalists, and prominent founders in the tech community, they’re more likely to keep negative comments to themselves rather than trash something. That doesn’t scale well, so Hoover has decided the best way to grow is to let commenters invite friends into the commenting pool.