What’s in your stack?
Product Hunt’s next new thing: YourStack, a new place to share the products you use and ❤️
In 2013, I wanted a place on the internet to share and discover the latest tech products with my friends. This idea turned into Product Hunt. Since then we’ve seen more than 150,000 products launch on the platform, upvoted by millions of people, and discovered by several million more. It’s become a place for makers and startups to launch their new product to the world and for curious people to discover the latest in tech, first.
But we have many more ideas we want to explore around product discovery, some that need to live independent of producthunt.com.
We’ve been quietly working on a new site and brand, taking our learnings from the past six years at Product Hunt to build something we hope you’ll enjoy.
We’re calling it YourStack, a new place to share the products you use and ❤️.
The product graph
Some of today’s most useful products and services take an existing graph and put it online.
- LinkedIn is a graph of your professional connections
- Slack is a graph of people you work with (right now)
- Facebook is a graph of your friends and family
- Spotify is a graph of the artists and music you love
- Foursquare is a graph of places you’ve visited
- Twitter is a graph of your interests
Oddly missing from this list: The Product Graph.
The products we use have a major influence on our lives, and today we have more options than ever before. So we ask our friends or turn to experts for their advice.
“What’s on your homescreen?”
“Which smart home security system do you have?”
“What do you use to make coffee in the morning?”
“Which tools do you use to manage your startup’s distributed team?”
“What’s your favorite book on psychology?”
Today, these questions are asked offline and on broader social networks like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Our goal with YourStack is to create a home for this conversation, a community of friendly people sharing and discovering the products they love ❤️.
The ingredients
Unlike other editorial or heavily algorithmic driven sites, we’re taking a community-first approach with YourStack. Here’s what it look like:
The Stack
Everyone has a profile to showcase their stack: the products they use and love. Here’s my profile:
This might include the apps on your homescreen (I use the Philz app too much), a book that changed your perspective (The Courage to be Disliked is the best book I’ve read in years), your favorite smart home gadget (the camera-less Minut security system has been a great addition to our home), or a must-have kitchen appliance (this air fryer changed my life).
The more products you stack, the more useful YourStack becomes
Collections (coming soon)
Lists are a foundational piece of the internet. We use lists to express an opinion or categorize things to make it easier to share, and this behavior is particularly useful for product curation.
Soon we’ll introduce Collections so you can categorize the products in your stack. You might create a collection of:
- Must-have smart home gadgets
- Top 10 books on product management
- My beauty products stack
- The best low or no alcohol alternatives
- My photography tools stack
Over time, these collections will help us catalog and curate the world’s products, together.
Pro Tips
YourStack isn’t just about discovering new products. It’a also for learning about the products you already use.
Pro tips are like a community-generated user manual of secrets, hacks, and how to’s. You’ll learn:
- How to check your AirPods’ battery level on your iPhone by Naval
- Not to underestimate the robber in Settlers of Catan by David
- How to get two free movie tickets/week for $10.99 by Abadesi
- Fastest way to unlock characters in Super Smash Bros by Rahul
- How to save $1 on your next cup of coffee at Philz by me!
Day 1
Like any new graph, its value isn’t demonstrated until there’s critical mass. So, we’re starting small and building in public staying true to how we built Product Hunt in the early days.
If you’re down to join us, create your YourStack profile.
Over the next few months, we’re opening the doors to a small group of early community members. Every week I’ll share our learnings and upcoming plans based on your feedback.
Questions, feedback, ideas? Don’t hesitate to drop me an email at ryan@yourstack.com or tweet at @rrhoover.
FAQ
Isn’t this just like producthunt.com? Why create a new site?
Many companies often make the mistake of trying to solve for multiple use cases on a single domain or app, resulting in clutter and competition for attention. YourStack is solving a related, but different, goal than Product Hunt.
Product Hunt has always been about discovering the new and most interesting products — it’s a launchpad for makers and startups. It’s not designed for discovering the best products or sharing the products you recommend.
In building YourStack, it was important for us to create a blank canvas devoid of any prior expectations or limitations. We’re taking into account our learnings building Product Hunt over the past six years to create something new. It’s been refreshing. 😊
What’s the story behind the pancake mascot?
Mascots are underrated.
Early on we knew we wanted to introduce another character to accompany Glasshole Kitty. Our brainstorm led to pancakes and my teammate, Julie, found a talented 3D artist to bring this little creature to life. Thanks, Leo!
I’m a maker. How can I use YourStack?
Makers and startups have two key challenges: (1) Building something people want and (2) Finding an audience.
We hope YourStack can help with both of these. Soon we’ll introduce ways for makers and startups to share product updates with their audience and tooling to monitor who and why people are using their product.