Product Exercise Day 2 — Startup Stash

Discussion on Product Hunt

This is Day Two in my 30 day challenge to product exercise.

WHAT MAKES THEM SUCCESSFUL?

Obviously Product Hunt attracts a startup oriented audience. This is a product that is aimed and helps that audience so it got a lot of play. But there are plenty of collections of startup tools — including on Product Hunt itself. There are specific reasons why Startup Stash got 1149 (at the time of writing) instead of 300.

Startup Stash is successful because it is curated and comprehensive. According to Bram Kanstein’s interview on Daily Hunt, he started with 700 tools before narrowing it down to the final 400 currently on the site. This high quality signal achieved through curation returns more value for users by saving them the time of having to weed out inferior tools. Also note that even though there are only 400 tools, they span 40 categories. Both breadth and depth is hard to find, which is why Startup Stash is a winner.

WHAT DID THEY GET RIGHT?

Startup Stash is organized into categories of ten products each. This saves users time finding the tools they need. In particular, I love this insight about how the categories are organized:

Bram thought about what a first time visitor needs. Sure, an alphabetical list would work and everyone would understand that organizational framework. However, some visitors might not even know where to start. There’s a reason they’re looking for tools: they need help! Bram helped them by showing visitors where to start. It’s subtle but it’s a great attention to detail.

HOW DID THE PEOPLE BEHIND THIS PRODUCT THINK ABOUT THIS IDEA?

Bram states many times that Startup Stash in its current form is an MVP. I am always fascinated by what and how makers choose to include in their product launch, so let’s focus on that.

1. Viable — Beyond the collections of curated products, Startup Stash gives a user enough information to narrow their consideration set. Each product has images, a customized “inside scoop” description, social links, and a website link. You may not be able to go from ten products in a category to choosing one to use right on the site, but that’s ok! Every user has different needs and they need to do some discovery themselves. The right balance is finding where you’re giving enough product information which helps strike some products from the list and also enables the user to find more relevant information offsite to make a final decision.
2. Minimum — The homepage in particular is nothing fancy. One Product Hunt user suggested adding a cover image to each collection square. Sure, it would look nicer, but would it help visitors find the collection they need faster? Even more relevant would be to ask if that is needed for launch? Bram draws on the simplicity and familiarity of a grid layout to effectually distinguish each category. I’m impressed by how well it works.
3. What’s not included — Bram said that there are five categories he wants to add near term. It’s hard to determine the threshold for number of categories needed to deliver value. What’s the real trade-off between having 40 categories vs. 45 at launch? My guess is that Bram thought he covered the gamut of startup needs effectively from beginning product development to breeding loyalty with an audience. With this coverage, he could comfortably launch without every category completed. 40 is still an incredible amount.
4. What’s not included part two — The main thing I’m surprised to see missing for an MVP is price. Now, pricing can be difficult since their are usually various tiers, but even an indicator of whether a tool is free or not is incredibly valuable. It saves a visitor time from having to go to a website, find the pricing page, and then review their options. I’m positive some visitors only want to find high quality free or freemium products. Since Bram was so successful on Product Hunt today I have to ask myself why it succeeded even without this price information? My hypothesis is that the value of breadth and depth of the categories provided the overwhelming amount of value. Anything else could have been left on the cutting room floor. This shows that focusing and understanding the core benefits to users above all is crucial in product creation.

Thanks for joining me for day two of Product Exercise. I’m writing these to push myself, but the love on social media is really encouraging and energizing. I’ll be posting another Product Exercise tomorrow in this collection. I hope you join me in practicing and honing your product skills with a post of your own.