Why The Next Wave Of Startups Will Be Community-Led (feat. Sharath Kuruganty)

Naval kind of reassured, if you play long enough, you can do it. James Clear reassured, if you start small, you can make it.

Wow. Why don't you— let's zoom out a little bit, right? Tell the audience how we first met and what it means to have this special bond that we both have. And I'll share my version. So you often talk about community-led growth. And I've seen this, you know, on your tweets and on some of the podcasts you've been on. And I think it's actually a quite novel thing for a lot of people, a lot of founders, a lot of startups. What does it mean in your view and how How does it work? What were some one or two interesting observations you had about Ryan Hoover and his grasp around product and community?

I think he's one of the most authentic people I've ever met.

You are the head of community at Thredo.

Yeah.

Tell me about why you think Thredo is special. Hey everybody, welcome to the Building Public podcast. I'm your host KP, and on this show I interview world-class entrepreneurs, ambitious startup founders, creators, and builders on the internet who are boldly building the future in public. This podcast is my excuse to take you all on a curious journey to understand, learn, and hopefully be inspired by the worldviews, insights, and stories of these fabulous people changing the world. So far, I've gotten the rare privilege to sit down with incredible guests like Gary Vee, Alexis Ohanian, Kat Cole, Sahil Lavingia, and many more leaders. So check out the full podcast listing at buildingpublicpodcast.com. Now buckle up and get ready for our latest episode. Hello, everybody. Welcome to yet another episode of Build in Public podcast. I'm your host, KP. And what can I say about our guest today? He is, as many of you know, a dear friend of mine, a lifelong friend. He was the best man at my wedding. He's my buddy. He was my neighbor, actually. They just moved last November to our neighborhood. He's my co-conspirator in my projects, my startups, and so many things that we got to learn and experiment together. Without further ado, I'm welcoming what should have been— this is high time. This is due for a long time. So without further ado, I'm welcoming Sharath Kuruganti to the Building Public pod. Welcome, Sharath.

So grateful to be here. I'm actually so thrilled because I always see these screenshots slash your Shoot My Shot, you know, tweets in the wild. And I always think like, what would the world of, you know, Build in Public podcast would be? And I'm fortunate that I'm actually inside the podcast. So I'm stoked for that as well as, you know, of course, you know, given the history we have, it's been like a true roller coaster ride, like going up down all the time since the last, what, 15, 20 years? Yeah, I've been together in this wild journey. So yeah, stoked to talk to everybody here, you know, share my lessons and whatnot.

Super excited. So today in this episode, we're gonna give a glimpse of, you know, Sharat's and my personal life, a little bit of our history, how we got together, some special moments from our journey, and, you know, like what it means to be, you know, a lifelong friend and so on. At the same time, we're also going to cover Sharat's He's won more jerseys than an NBA player. I think he's got a lot, a lot of exciting startups he worked at, including Product Hunt and On Deck, and now with Thredo. So we're going to touch on that and then some advice for founders around side projects and community building and building in public, you know, the topic that's close to both of our hearts.

Yes.

So that's the thesis. But let's get started. Sharath, why don't you— let's zoom out a little bit, right? Tell the audience how we first met and what it means to have a special bond that we both have, and I'll share my version.

Yes, I have to take everybody back to what my childhood days when I was in this tiny city in India, South India, where actually this is a fun story because KP was never my friend directly. So I actually have a friend who is a cousin of KP, and he used to come for summers to visit our place, the place where we live in. And we play this game called cricket. Like, I don't know how much, how many hours I played. I don't remember, but I used to play like a lot with my friend who is his cousin. And one fine afternoon, a regular schedule of cricket in the front yard, not even backyard. How

old were we at the time?

I think we are around 16, I guess.

Yeah, 15, 16 maybe.

16, yeah, 15, 16-ish. You

know, for context, right now we're both like 33, 32.

Yes, it feels so wild if you put that out, right? But yeah, he joined, you know, one of our cricket clubs. We proudly, you know, call ourselves a club in this small neighborhood, and we don't even have a ground or like a big You know, stadium or anything. There's no playground. We just used to play in front of our front yard. And I think that's the first moment I saw KP. And like I said, I think the tiny city, it's not even a city, it's kind of like a small village I came in.

Yeah, right.

I personally never had the city exposure, you know, or the, what do you call, I don't know, like basically the, all the happening that goes on in a city and, you know, Everything right, the wild side of you know living in a city. So he's the first one to basically introduce me to the city life. Like this is how you know Hyderabad, the one he came from. This is how we used to hang out. This is how the places are and etcetera etcetera. Like you know this is how movie theaters would be. I was all like fascinated by the fact because I never like you know went to these cities even though they're like nearby. But I feel that conversation really bonded us like together with the playing cricket with our mutual friend and and. And I think you stayed for like a couple of weeks and every day we hung out. We hung out. But yeah, I feel that was like the first moments.

What does it mean now as you look back, what, 15 years as we counted, maybe more, 17, to have that, you know, have a friendship like that, you know? And I'll share my version. It's different, I think. But what does it mean to you?

It means, I feel like It means a lot. Like, you know, one thing for sure is that I personally don't have too many friends. I'm kind of like an introvert back then, kind of right now.

Which is so shocking to your 20,000 Twitter followers now, right?

Exactly. Nobody actually knows that. I had like very few friends where I can count, and I always wanted to make—

Head of community of Threado. The head of community. Like, how ironic is that? Right now you're like the head of community of Threado.

Yeah, life bites you back, right? So But I feel, yeah, so my intention was whenever I meet someone, I just want to like, you know, build like a long-term relationship. Like, you know, I try to at least mingle with them in a way. And if I find someone like yourself who exactly resonated with me the way I resonate with others. So even that's why I have to bring this example as well. I married my wife who I know since what, 20 years as well? Yes. So since like she's my schoolmate. You kind of like, you know, it means so much because it's not like a one-way street. It's like kind of like a rally, like, you know, in a game. So I don't take the entire credit. I actually share the credit with you guys because you played with me for so long. And of course, we're going to play for like forever. And now it's even more special because of our kids playing together. And even like last week, my son turned 1 and KP and Neil, Devin, they visited us. I was so happy, just like pure happiness, because forget about startups, forget about like all the things we go through. I feel it felt like very small in front of what I'm seeing, which was 2 1-year-old, 14-month-old, you know, 2 boys, little boys actually hanging out like the way we hung out back in the day, right? So I feel those moments remind us like, oh wow, we came so far, like playing cricket in a front yard to—

Yeah.

Kids like really like, you know, playing with themselves. So it means like so

Yeah, life can be much broader, right, than just startups and projects.

Exactly. If anything, Mingles kind of like mix and match with life and your professional career. That's what I'm experiencing right now because, you know, I've traveled with you not just personally but more career-wise. We grew together. We saw, you know, we tried like many things, we failed at many things, and we kind of like achieved many things together. So I feel that's kind of like more rewarding, like, you know, even more rewarding because sometimes I think Steve said this, right? Most of your life you kind of spend at work, so you have to treat them as family. And for me, it's like family being work, which is like the opposite, right? So yeah, it's so rewarding for sure.

Yeah, no, I mean, I think you touched on a lot of the things that I feel too. And I mean, the story is the same. I remember playing right outside, right in the front yard of Sriram's house, and we were playing cricket. And fun fact, Sharath's a terrific batsman. And I always was jealous about that. He was an opener batsman when we were playing cricket.

Right.

And he was smacking everything out of the park. He was such a great timing player. And so I was a bowler. And so for the folks who know cricket, bowling is sort of like pitching in baseball. So yeah, I was a bowler, Shad's a batter, batsman, and we had fun. So what does it mean to me? I think it was not a straight line, right? It had its own highs and lows, but it's the most rewarding Friendship that I have ever had, and I you know it's there were so many things I think you taught me. You know just by being you, and sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly, and it's changed me. I think it made me a better person. I used to not be like this, as you know, right? Like many years ago. But I think it made me a better person. I'm always still jealous of your taste and aesthetics. The way you like set up the home. Like folks who are missing out, like if you're listening on audio, like Sharad's backgrounds. impeccable and his house is beautiful. So I think, yeah, it's knowing that the things that you cherish the most towards the end are the ones you cherish a lot are the ones that are very ordinary and seem simple. And I feel like that's how I would describe it. It was not fancy. It was not like we didn't have thousands of pictures. We didn't travel the world. We didn't go digital nomading in Bali. We were just ordinary people. We just had a lot of good human instincts. Right. I think we forgave each other when we made mistakes and we tried to look out for each other. Right. And that's it.

We made so many blunders with each other individually, like in personal lives. And I feel we learned together as like, you know, if we want to move forward, we need to forgive each other.

Yes.

And which is actually the bigger picture. We actually had this kind of like big purpose of doing things together, which actually impacts even more people. So that stayed with both of us, you know, for all the time, you know, for all the lows we had together, I feel. And it's kind of like a You know, you're kind of like my other partner and where I can actually share. Yeah, if I'm like having a bad day or, you know, something didn't work out and that support pillar, I would say, is, you know, and I feel a friend like you is, of course, one in a million, at least to me, myself in my life. So

thank you. So let's talk about Neil and Rohan, right? Jumping point. People need to know who is easy to babysit, Neil or Rohan.

I think I can tell both. They're both naughty.

They're both mischievous. So For context, Neil's 15 months old and Rohan's just turned 1. Rohan's Sharad's son. Neil's my son. And they get to play almost every day, right? And they are both mischievous, extremely mischievous, hard to catch. Yeah, they keep us on our toes.

I think we don't have to work out. They're actually giving us all the work, working out postures, gestures, whatever you want to call lifting them up when they're throwing a tantrum. Oh my God. Both are very mischievous. I think I would say Neil is a bit more expressive. Of course, you know, like father, like son. Because he always, whenever Rohan comes to your place, of course he kisses, he tries to like, you know, touch gently. Rohan is more like an observer. He's following his brother, big brother, like where is he going? What is he doing? Let me replicate that. He's very curious though.

Yeah, he's very curious.

Yeah, he's an observer. And once he gets into the mood, which Neil sets, I think both of them, they just go bonkers, which is a nightmare for us.

Oh my God. Yeah. So given what you've seen, you know, Rohan for almost a year now, prediction time. What do you predict that he'll become given his traits, tendencies, and skills?

I think he has a knack for music for sure. You know, I feel the same. Yeah, we observed that like quite a lot, at least in the last 4 or 5 months. He listened to really nice music and we put some bad music, he's like cranky and, you know, he changes his expressions. And of course he started like playing with xylophone.

Yeah.

So I think he has definitely— and he also, we saw recently that he's kicking ball, the football, the soccer ball with his foot constantly and he's moving the ball, you know. So we don't know. I think that's— those are 2 traits I'm seeing very closely as of now.

What do you think of what are some predictions for Neil?

Neil, I think, would be like either a linebacker for sure, if Devin allows. But I think he's going to be the next Shaq.

The next Shaq? Center?

The big man who's— he's going to be the next big man in NBA who's going to do a lot of things.

He's very destructive. Yeah, he's got destructive tendencies. Anyway, so, all right, so that was fun. Thanks for sharing. I'm sure This is when we will lose both our wives if they listen to this podcast, because everything else we will talk about from now, they don't care.

They'll just shut it off.

Yeah. Let's get to career. So you often talk about community-led growth, and I've seen this on your tweets and on some of the podcasts you've been on. And I think it's actually a quite novel thing for a lot of people, a lot of founders, a lot of startups. What does it mean in your view and how does it work?

I feel a lot of A lot of the trajectory in startups are changing drastically, at least in this decade, which is they're becoming more community-focused. Fundamentally, they want to bring their customers together. You know, that's like the baseline they want to start. But what I see personally, and I advise founders, is that you go, you have to think more beyond than customers. You genuinely want to bring like-minded folks together so that there are like tons of benefits for building a community, but fundamentally you as a founder are building these relationships just like how we just spoke about, right? Imagine having thousands of, even hundreds of people building long-term relationships with you, and wherever you go, they follow, and you kind of like piggyback with each other. Everything, like if you're starting a venture, they're going to be supportive. If you're like failed at a venture, they're going to be there. So I feel intangibly, to me, that is what a company or a startup should do. like build these relationships and eventually convert or turn them into customers. So just to answer that question, I see this trajectory becoming, you know, thanks to Web3, the evolution and whatnot, people are moving towards— founders are moving towards that tendency. But at the same time, they lack that clarity why they're building in that community in the first place.

Right.

And they're kind of tagging a tangible outcome-oriented you know, actions while they do things. And community is not at all transactional. Mostly it's like one-way street in the beginning, but it becomes like a two-way street, you know, if you spend enough time. And community-led growth to me is really important because of this. You kind of bring these people, and there are like so many startups who actually— Notion, for example, they've built— they spent like zero marketing, if I'm not wrong, zero dollars in marketing, and All they did was build these ambassador programs, these community initiatives. They launched meetups, even Product Hunt, they launched meetups and they saw their company growing because they appointed community leaders who were using Notion in the first place. So I feel if you think about that playbook, literally apply that playbook to online communities, right? You don't necessarily have to, you know, go in, be in person. You can host an event like a fireside chat or AMA or anything and create value while you do these events and plug your product and the ask in one of those sessions where you say, you know what, you kind of like give, give, give and kind of like ask in the end.

Yeah.

And Notion is a great example for a community-led product. And the one thing I want to cover is, so it's not just customers that get to be part of your community. You get introduced to investors, you get introduced to your next hire. And I am the perfect example for that. Product Hunt hired me because I'm actually pretty active in the community, and they saw like pretty clear, like, okay, you know what, this guy is making a lot of noise, might as well give a chance. And I want to also plug another example, Axie Infinity, which is like a billion-dollar Web3 company,

right?

Their co-founder Jiho is right now, he's a co-founder, but he was actually a community member when Axie Infinity was started, like, wow, like on the ground level. Wow. So he was given a chance to become a community manager first which actually like he expanded the community like all through the world, eventually becoming like a co-founder. So I feel there is so much skin in the game if you want to hire your next bet, right? Like, so you hire your next best people, you get like these introductions to, you know, VCs, you want to like expand your network. So there are like tons of benefits if you go the path of community-led growth. And that to me is like very important in a startup journey, you know, especially when you're early stage. Right. You have to like heavily rely on community more than Anything else like marketing or, you know, other things.

Right. I mean, because you're like, you have to be scrappy. You don't have enough resources. Yeah. So you also famously said in one of your tweets that I think went viral was community is not starting a Slack channel. And it cracked me up. What happened there? What made you— what prompted you to come up with something like that?

Yeah. Again, it's kind of like People expect create a Slack channel and join, like invite like 10 people and sit back and do nothing and expect it grow. That's what I meant. It's not like creating like a Discord channel or a Slack channel. You have to put into work. You have to— that's why you have to do a one-way street type of hustle. You have to produce a lot of content, engage them, do one-on-one meetings. When I joined ODNC, if I can give you an example, I truly joined to literally meet everybody in ODNC and I actually went on calls with 50 people. throughout the cohort, right? So if you put skin in the game like that, of course they're going to like see you as you're leading the example by example, right? And they kind of want to replicate what you did. Yeah. That's how they engage with other people, and that's how communities become self-sustainable. And you can like, you know, step back and see, okay, you know what, now we can find leaders, these community ambassadors who just like do things that you usually do for them. Right. So that's what I meant. I meant like, you know, you just don't create Slack channel and step back and things— expect things to happen.

I had a good crack, good laugh at it when you shipped it. So let's jumping off to another topic, a big one, which is another theme that you and I both share a lot on going from side projects to startups. Like, I think it's a very unconventional approach. I don't think it should be unconventional. It should be the norm. But I think what you and I were forced to when we were on all these visas on H-1B and all these work visas, the approach we had to choose because we didn't have any other choice was build side projects on the side and keep your full-time job and use them and use the traction momentum to eventually quit and go full-time, join a startup, or even start your own, basically like continue expanding. I know that there was an inflection point that led for you to be more active in this journey. And I know the person that is responsible for that inflection point, Naval Ravikant.

Yes.

How did Naval change your worldview?

Oh my God, I think he is the mentor I always wish I wanted to have, you know. And I still kind of owe every piece I did, every part of action to him because he made a significant impact removing a lot of burdens on me. And his story of going from New Delhi to coming to the US and spending time, a lot of time in the library, basically like kind of made me so much relevance to my story. Like, you know, I came from a small city as well to the US and he proved one thing, which is if you play long enough, he always preaches the same thing. Like, if you play long enough, you'll make it someday, one way or the other day.

Yeah.

And that to me kind of removed all the burdens. Like, I don't have to chase anything and I don't have to, like, you know, prove anything. I just have to be in the moment and have fun, which I think he also kind of, like, you know, reminded me so many times. Have fun, do these side projects. And one of his tweets that resonated with me so personally is that he said, before building a startup, build a lot of side projects. Right. And his thesis, which actually really worked in both of our lives, is that you have to learn every piece of building a startup. You can't just say, hey, I'm building this startup, you know, from day one. You have to learn, put in the game, build that skin in the game, build that muscle, build that, you know, experience, you know, go through all the highs and lows and whatnot. Which actually, that's what exactly we did. I literally took that tweet close to heart and executed from right there, right then. And he also said, I mean, I can literally talk about hours what he preached and what, you know, made me impact. But the most important thing is he literally took the expectations out of the picture and he kind of reassured and put confidence in me that you can do it if you have— if you put action towards it without expectation and keep going, keep going, keep going. So,

so the night before you ever heard his podcast or ever had this, let's say, inflection point, what were you doing in your view? What were you doing wrong? And after the podcast or after listening to him, after like all the tweets and everything, what did you start doing differently?

I think before him it was all theory. It was all in my mind, like these things I can do, I want to do, I have these ideas. Everything is pretty much— it's like a bubble. I used to live in my own bubble. Thinking that I can, I can be the next big thing without a tangible action, right? So after listening to him, he literally said, like I said, remove everything, remove those burdens, start really small, like really, really small. And I feel at that point I have to, you know, also give massive shout out to James Clear, who actually kind of brought an action-first mindset, habit-first mindset, Tiny Habits, Atomic

Habits.

Tiny Habits, Atomic Habits type of identity-oriented, you know, things. I feel both of them literally like, you know, occupied my mind back then. Naval kind of reassured, if you play long enough, you can do it. James Clear reassured, if you start small, you can make it. Wow. And I feel both of it like really resonated with me at that point. I'm like, you know what, then who's not— who's stopping me? It's just me, right? I just have to like get into action. And the first immediate action, and you know this as well, so I bought Ben Tossell's NewCo back then. MakerPad back then is NewCo, and he and Mops, they were both doing this together, and they started like this cohort, and they offered a $99-some course or something. I don't even remember.

Lifetime pass or something. Yeah.

Lifetime membership, and I instantly bought. At that time, $99 is like, you know, so big to me because when I was living paycheck to paycheck,

right,

and it was like so big. And I think that one tiny big action for me, but tiny for many, if you just take that action, you're basically in the game. So we both, you know, we want— we always talk about this. We wanted to be in the game, not on the sidelines.

Right. Be in the arena, right? Yeah.

Be in the arena, man in the arena. You have to like, you know, put in the game. So that really changed everything. Naval is— oh my God, he's a genius.

Yeah. I mean, for the listeners who— I mean, the further extension of what Sharath just said, I joined right after, you know, he joined and he just messaged me on my iMessage saying, I just joined this thing called NewCo. You know, I'm going to become a no-code maker. We're going to do this. I'm going to become a no-code maker. And so I was so inspired that even I paid for it, I think. And then I also joined that weekend and we started our no-code journey almost at the same time. And, you know, he built, Sharath, how many? What, 15, 16? I lost track of how many projects he shipped over the course of time. Maybe 20, I think.

Yeah, I did 15 plus. Yeah.

Yeah. And so did I, something like that. So it's been a mind-bending experience being in the arena, becoming actors, becoming doers as opposed to being on sidelines. And yeah, I think that lesson is always true, even at whatever stage you are, however successful you are.

Yeah.

The inertia will always push you to the sidelines. The fear of losing reputation, fear of rejection, fear of failure, some of all these things will slowly, slowly move you to the sidelines. and suddenly you wake up and you're not doing any action, and then you have self-doubts, right? Like, and so I think something that he and I, we always remind each other that, you know, regardless, you have to be, you know, a man in the arena, like be in the arena and be present.

And you have to face the uncomfortable more and very frequently, you know. To me, that is very important because like I said even before in the podcast, I'm an introvert. A lot of people don't know this. And me doing what I did in the last 3 years or 4 years, if someone said to the Sharad that met KP playing cricket, that Sharad would have like laughed and like, you know, treat you as a fool. I feel Nawal kind of, you know, again, I think he reminded so much and made it so relevant to listeners. I guess that's why it's so popular.

Yeah.

Because he himself said so many times that he's kind of like an introvert, you know, he doesn't mingle with a lot of people. And but he made it, right? He did so many things which actually is so inspiring. So I feel if whoever is listening, you know, find that relevancy in your North Stars. Once you find it, it's like you can do it, you know, you can literally do it.

So your story with Naval is even more fascinating because, you know, I think if I recall, you actually got to work with him, right? And it's so amazing. I watched, I heard from you some parts of the story. And so actually for the listeners, can you give a sense of like, one, what was the story of you working with, what was it like working with Naval? And second, what was your favorite memory in that journey?

I think the— so yeah, I built this second side project called The Angel Philosopher, completely inspired by him. The idea was to like put everything of his content under one place. And while I was doing it, I, at that time, listening to him made me take a lot of risk, like do things, like shoot your shot in the wild, in the darkness. And one of the things I did was literally cold emailing him little Naval at, you know, I don't want to reveal his name publicly, but I literally did it. And I wrote a big-ass email sharing why I built this project and what it— what he meant to me. Why am I doing this so that he knows the value? And at the end, I said, like, you know, this is just to let you know that I'm working on, no action needed from your end. And he responded, I think, less than 10 minutes after he got the email. Wow. That actually blew my mind. And this was around 1 AM to me, and I stayed all night literally like typing the next message. So that was like the, the like thrilling moment. But I feel there are like a couple things I want to mention. Working with him was very— I think it's more a great learning experience. The reason is you are building this tiny project, he is somewhere like 100 levels up above from you.

And at the time you didn't even have an audience, right? You were just—

I don't have— I have around like not even that, like I have like around 400, 500 people, that's it. No audience on Twitter, nothing. And he actually came to my level and kind of explained things when I was asking certain questions like, what can we do with this and whatnot? And he removed a lot of doing things with expectations again, practically with me. So he said, build this for fun. Don't even bother about— I said, like, one of the asks I had is, hey, Naval, why can't we just like put an email, kind of like subscribe to this email where we can actually build an audience? do other things, yada yada. He said, that's not the whole point, right? And he reminded me the why you're building this. So he came to my level, kind of explained why you should do this, why you should treat a side project as a side project and listen to people what they want, right? So he literally said, let's try it out. Maybe someone says, yeah, I need like a newsletter with Naval quotes, then build Naval's quotes as a newsletter. Wow. So that truly like, you know, changed everything. And the other thing also, he said, I was actually kind of wrote a copy in a way which is very cheesy, kind of like, you know, like a fanboy type of a thing. And he said, be authentic. Don't try to sell. You're not here to sell. Try to express why you're doing this in the first place. And if you go see on the website, even till today, I didn't change a line of it, which he approved. It was all authentic. Why am I doing this? and what's in for you.

Wow.

And, and that, that is really fascinating. And, uh, you know, my favorite moment was when he actually changed his Twitter bio to one of the— basically he used to have, I think, angel.co as his Twitter link. He changed it to theangelphilosopher.com for almost like 8 months. And that, that was like—

That was a pretty cool moment.

They're pretty good. I actually have a screenshot of it. It's a pretty cool moment.

So fast forward from that, building these side projects to, you know, I think, you know, you have a breadth of projects and I'm going to list your work in the show notes. Take— bring us to Product Hunt moment. What was the prompt where you wanted to apply and, you know, and how did that process go? And what did you like? What did you enjoy about being at Product Hunt?

I think I did Product Hunt, applied to Product Hunt in public at that time in 2021. The first 5 months of 2021, I was aggressively building Shoutout in public. public. So I might as well like thought like, why can't I just like, you know, apply in public? And I think the proof of work really like impacted a lot, which led to that moment because I was very actively shipping and actively hunting and actively contributing. I was actually nominated twice for Community Member of the Year. Wow. Golden Kitty before, and I won the Maker Grant Award for 2021 February. And I, one of my projects actually won Maker Faire.

Right.

So there is kind of like this history that was built by naturally, like I didn't intend to like work at Product Hunt, never, never. I always got fascinated the way Ryan built the whole thing authentically, you know, without any gimmicks or hacks.

Right.

And so when I was actually like saw they were looking for a head of community role, actually shoot my shot, you know. Just in the while applied, nothing. And I think Ryan tweeted, we are actually hiring for head of community, we need some recommendations. I feel you tagged me and I was like, you know, let's shoot my shot. And that was when the Maker Grant award is happening. I was actually already talking to Emily from Product Hunt and literally I asked like, hey Emily, what do you think? Is there a role for me at Product Hunt? And I did like a small assignment. without permissionless assignment. And I said like, these are the things I would do if I were to join the team.

Right.

So I don't know if I can— I'm allowed to tell this, but they actually kind of created a role for me.

Right.

And Ryan was involved, Ashley was involved, Emily. They were kind of like, you know, prepared a role for me. And yeah, I went on a couple of calls. We instantly kind of connected why, you know, I'll be like a great fit. And And I think that's like the key takeaway. You don't have to— I didn't pitch myself because I— all my work over the times I contributed so much to product discussions or, you know, elevated their new features, your stacks. I was like very actively tweeting about them. These all kind of like, you know, counted for that moment and added to the moment. I'm like, they made it like a, you know, a clear-cut choice. Yeah. offered. So, and I didn't— I only pitched—

yeah, sorry.

I only pitched what can I do from here? What I did, I never pitched. So

yeah,

it was a very surreal moment.

Yeah, I remember you sharing that with me and like, you know, the excitement of joining Product Hunt. And, you know, I remember how hyped up you were, how— yeah, I think it was one of your most exciting jobs you've ever had, right?

Yeah, I think it's kind of like my dream company working with Ryan, kind of like knowing the team, you know, even Josh Buckley, everyone was pretty they were like chill, kind, and they were more let's have fun, you know, let's not take things too seriously kind of people. So

I got one more question on the topic of Ryan and we can switch, we'll switch to Thredo. And I know we're, you know, almost hitting the time here. So with Ryan Hoover, right, folks who are listening, Ryan Hoover is Product Hunt's founder. When you worked there, Sharath, you know, I don't think he was tangent, he was directly involved, but I think he was indirectly involved with you. And so what I wanted to ask you is like, what were some One or two interesting observations you had about Ryan Hoover and his grasp around product and community. He's such a unique leader who gets both product and community, which are very, very different and hard to blend in. What were your observations?

I think he's one of the most authentic people I've ever met. I think with that stature he's in, he's already like, he's an investor, he's doing like a bunch of things. And he spoke to me like a friend. not as a, as a, as a boss or like, you know, as this founder of Product Hunt. He literally was very authentic, very grounded to like, you know, to my level. Like, you know, we were just literally chatting how can we make Product Hunt better together. So he still have that spark because, you know, he built that for himself, not for anybody else, which is of course it become like a big thing. So fundamentally what I observed in him 2 things, right? Again, product and community. He's a product guy by nature with his experience, you know, and he saw authentic people coming together, build Product Hunt without him involving. That's when I feel he realized the power of community and he tried to bring people like himself who are authentic. So that's why Product Hunt is so small. It's not like a typical corporation or an organization at that level. They're already like super big brand-wise. Right. They were so small and even even when they were hiring me, they reminded this thing again and again and again. We are looking for authentic people. We don't want big hyped up people, like folks who are like doing aggressive things. We just want like— I think he don't— he doesn't try much to be someone else. He just be himself. Like, he's very like, you know, he speaks his mind and he doesn't like, you know, overthink, which I really admire because, you know, that's how life should work, right? You don't have— Right. You only have one life and you don't have to He doesn't want to impress you. He's just himself, and naturally people get attracted to his authenticity and his natural ability, like, you know, his charisma and whatnot. So, and yeah, I feel Product Hunt is a true example where he blended both product-led, community-led growth together.

Together, yeah.

Hiring these folks is a tremendous, you know, achievement by itself. And even bringing Eric, his first hire as Product Hunt And they hustled together, like, you know, build this thing, find more community leaders inside the community. And he gave me power so much when I was at Product Hunt. Do this, you know, you're— whatever that comes to your mind and you feel value for others, do it. Right. So we did. I did some of, you know, some good things there thanks to the whole team. But yeah, I feel that's something I feel which is very lacking. And I try to like kind of like, you know, resonate with other founders, kind of blend that service mindset And try to be very authentic with what you do.

So that brings us to what you're doing now. And I know you just joined. First of all, congrats on the new job. I wished you on Twitter. I wished you in person. Appreciate

it.

You are the head of community at Thredo. Super exciting. Couldn't be more thrilled. I think it's a great fit. I spoke to Pramod, and so I know him really well. Like, you know, there's a lot of mutual appreciation between you and him, you know, so I think it's a great fit. Tell me about why you think Thredo is special and then tell me a little bit around why Promote is special, because I think Promote's got some very strong founder instincts that need to be talked about. Yeah,

I think first thing, they're trying to build an alternative, not an alternative, but they're trying to replicate what Mailchimp did for marketing. So which kind of like really intrigued me as a product, but on an ethos level, they wanted to be scrappy and they are willing to risk. They wanted to be in the arena again, even though their product is in the waitlist. Thredo is right now in the waitlist. They actually shipped 8 products, side projects, which helped communities learn about community, you know, up their Slack game and whatnot.

Right.

So that is, to me, is really triggered me like, wow, you know, nobody's actually doing that, right?

Yeah.

Either they focus on their product or focus on growth and marketing. They create consistent value. And even with their events, they're not like, again, they're truly authentic to themselves and they are trying to play the game at their highest level. And to me, that is like, you know, really it kind of like acted like a magnet to me. And from a product level, I really love the product because like I said, they wanted to like remove a lot of friction for community builders and give them a chance to actually focus on building a community, not worrying about Zapier automations, not worrying about— Mm-hmm. Who should I headhunt for the next community champion in my community? Which Threddo is going to like, you know, solve a lot of time-taking tasks. So as you know, you ran ODNC. It's so tiring to run a community. So they eliminate that friction from a product level so that you peacefully can host an event or work on content.

Right.

And Pramod, I feel he's a really amazing guy, you know. I never met. To me, I've been with Thredo, I'm working with them the last 2-3 weeks. I never felt like I'm actually working. It's— I felt more collaborating. Like, it really is a rally. Like, you know, I suggest something, they suggest back, he suggests back. It's kind of like we're brainstorming and executing. And his execution speed is amazing, you know. The way he takes things in and put it into action, he doesn't think twice, which a lot of founders One of the main qualities for founders should be like, you know, move fast, get into the market, which he has a lot of genuine instincts. It's not like he's trying to be like that. He's genuinely like, you know, put things into action. So that's actually the same way.

Yeah, actually the same way.

He's a kind person, you know. I sense his kindness and he's willing to like, you know, take a bet, take a chance, even though it's kind of non-traditional You know, so I know no founder in, especially in the community space, doing community drops like Thredo. So that itself speaks.

Yeah. And they're just getting started, right? I mean, it's, I think there's, I mean, roadmap that I saw a bunch of things you shared the other day and it was mind-blowing, all the new community initiatives and marketing and, you know, product drops. So excited.

I'm excited, excited for the next coming months.

Yeah, I think it's a great fit. I just shared with him that, you know, he couldn't have picked a better person, you know, in you. And I shared with you that And I went after talking to Pramod, I'm like, so for the audience listening, like Sharad asked me just before joining, like, what should he, you know, should he consider Thredo or something else? And like, and I talked with the CEO Pramod and I just like said, no, it's a natural fit. It just, you know, can't pass up this opportunity and vice versa over there too. So happy to see now, like, I think the community is benefiting from all of your collaborations. So that's awesome.

Yeah, you were right again. So.

Yeah. You know, yeah, thank you. I mean, I don't think I get any credit there, but Thank you so much, Sharath. We could go on for days, for hours. I just want to be conscious of the length of the episodes for folks to listen. So this is just a teaser. Maybe we'll bring you back in one of the future episodes again.

Sure.

It's always a pleasure to chat with you in real life or virtually. Even more of a special pleasure and privilege to have you on the podcast, share your playbooks, and draw deeply from your lessons and reflect on some of the things you did. I feel like you and I, in our day-to-day, we just We just don't talk about some of this stuff because we lived it. You're like, what are you going to talk about? But I knew that's why I came prepared with my questions for you because I knew that I had to dig deeper to get some really high-value content.

No, it's truly an honor because I know the guest list on Building Public Podcast and genuinely like, you know, I'm thrilled to be here and thanks for inviting me, having me here. Honored to be here. Awesome. Thanks, Gabby.

See ya. With that said, we have to say our customary— I'm gonna say, I'm gonna refer to Sharad the way I refer to him all the time, right? Bye, Mama.

Yes.

Bye. The Mama is our—

Yes, that's how we call each other.

Yeah. Some people have Pachi, some people have other things, but you know, we call each other Mama. All right. See ya.

All right. Have a good one. You too.