Hi there 👋 I'm Ashley, Product Hunt's CEO. AMA 👇

@orliesaurus I usually wake up around 7:30a

@ahiggz ahhh glad to hear you're not a 4am terminator!

@orliesaurus I gave up on that pipe dream a long time ago! If you haven't already, go ahead and read Why We Sleep. The author makes a compelling case for not cutting off sleep before ~8 hours. Some of the most important cognitive & memory processes happen in the last couple of hours of sleep during NREM. Now I sleep until the sun comes up, guilt free 😇

@_bill Thanks, Bill! 😸

@bethanybuer Hey Bethany, thanks for the question! I'd say the main value of launching on Product Hunt is distribution. In other words: makers get access to a huge community of technophiles and early adopters who make amazing first customers. Many companies have taken that early group of customers, worked closely with them, and iterated on their products to make them even better. With more startups launching than ever, it has become harder to break through the noise across the internet. Plus, paid advertising has become even more expensive and unscalable, which makes Product Hunt even more valuable as a place for organic discovery of high quality products.

@artistcarlose Hey Carlos, thanks for the question! Believe it or not, this one was hard to answer! Chocolate fondue and ice cream cones are probably two of my favorites. But I like to finish most big meals with a hot cup of mint tea 🍵😴

@ahiggz Ah that's great! Thank you for answers. And Mint Tea is totally good! 🍵

@deephdave Hey Dave! We're actually thinking a lot about this right now. We don't have the exact implementation details ironed out yet, but it's likely we'll start with a more siloed experiment to start and figure out if / how to integrate into the broader system afterwards.

@helenx324 Hey Helen, thanks for the question! Growth always boils down to acquisition and retention. I personally think there are a fair number of hacky / quick paths to acquisition to choose from, but you can't cheat retention, and that's the hardest thing to crack. It doesn't matter how many new users you get to the party if you can't keep them there. At the end of the day, everything comes down to: what value are you adding that your users can't live without? If you solve for that, you can push new users in from all sorts of places (referrals, ads, content marketing) and growth will work itself out from there. Easier said than done!

@ahiggz Thanks for your insightful answer! I agree, it's a challenge, but a necessity, to tackle retention and acquisition at the same time. Definitely worth the effort though!