The Leaderboard

We want to send you to Jackson Hole, or “J-Hole” as the billionaires in Silicon Valley call it. BTW, this trip will cost you nothing and you can enter to win here.

Courtesy of our friends at 1440, Conde Nast and Men’s Health (among others), this free trip to Jackson Hole includes four days and three nights at the Teton Mountain Lodge (or a comparable hotel) and up to $1,500 towards airfare. Think mountains, skiing and white water rafting. 🏔

After you win, try all of these travel apps to make the most of your trip. You can use things like:

👋 Friend Theory for connecting with people while you travel
🎒 Bounce for storing your luggage
😋 What to Eat In for discovering local food

“This is one of those awesome products that really makes you think about what's possible without code.” - Ben

Today, Dwellito launched on Product Hunt with a marketplace of modular homes that ship straight to your house. The idea touches on similar themes to Y Combinator-backed Rent the Backyard, a startup we wrote about back in July that builds a studio apartment in your backyard and lets you rent it out. 🏠

What’s cool about Dwellito is that it was built from no code tools, including Webflow, Google Sheets, Zapier and Airtable. The marketplace includes 40 architect-grade prefab designs which you can buy pre-assembled or DIY. From there, you can use the modular home however you like, whether it be for a rental, a studio or a suite.

The idea of kit homes actually started in the early 1900s, when Sears offered homes for parts (10,000 parts, actually) in its catalog. Sort of like Ikea on steroids, the items shipped to the customer and were put together completely from scratch. From 1908 to the 1940s, Sears sold about 70,000 (!!) kit homes in about 270 different styles, from Colonial to Tudor to bungalows.

In recent years, tiny houses have taken off, marketed as housing solutions for overpopulated cities and the homelessness. They’re also good for the environment - a new study found that tiny home downsizers reduce their environmental footprint by an average of 45 percent. Notably, Amazon’s prefab tiny house went viral earlier this year for its low price of $7,000. Buying a backyard guest house from the internet seems like a savvy way to make some extra cash in the age of Airbnb, which is actually how Dwellito got its start.

“About 1.5 years ago, I wanted to build a guest house in my backyard to rent on airbnb. Side note: In Phoenix, a rental could pay the entire mortgage of the main house. I got frustrated with the number of online companies that were out of business, not servicing my state, or weren’t clear about pricing. I created a notion doc that compared all of the prefab models that I had found. My other homeowner friends said the list was incredibly helpful and they were considering to buy one themselves. I started to get the good vibes that it could be a business,” Dwellito Maker Caleb Barclay wrote in a blog post.

Would you buy a tiny house on the internet? Take our poll. 👈

“Knowable is building the first platform for audio-first learning. Great courses with top instructors, delivered screen-free, so you can learn when and how you want. So excited by this idea and team — folks from NPR, Washington Post, and Masterclass — that I’m part of the first course on building a startup.“ - Alexis Ohanian

Knowable launched on Product Hunt yesterday with a novel idea — it’s like Masterclass, but just with audio. The idea is to tap into the set of podcast listeners who want to learn new skills in their ears versus watching a video. 🎧

“Our team loves podcasts and audiobooks, but neither format is made specifically for education, and neither takes advantage of the smart devices they’re delivered through (both are static, one-way experiences). Meanwhile, most online courses are delivered through video, which limits when and how you can learn” - Knowable co-founder Warren Shaeffer

Instead, Knowable combines the “listenability of podcasts, the authority of audiobooks and the structure of online courses” for a new way to learn. The platform is launching with six eight-hour courses to start — you can learn the skills it takes to launch a startup, start a podcast, sleep better, speak with confidence, become a climate change hero or invest in real estate. The classes also include a downloadable textbook and summary notes that get delivered to your inbox after each lesson. There’s no ads and each course will run you $100.



Some early reactions:

“My wife gave me a Masterclass two years ago that I've yet to 'watch' because I don't want to sit in front of my computer for 10 hours. This format is a great shift.” - Matt

“Knowable is a great idea combined with great execution. The courses are extremely well-planned, well-hosted, and well-produced.” - Adam

“I have really enjoyed Knowable audio class on start-ups. As a founder of a real estate tech platform I wish I had this info earlier. It would have saved me and my team a lot of time and money.” - Ryan

Knowable also raised a $3.75 million seed round from Andreessen Horowitz, Upfront, First Round and Initialized. The market is reportedly ripe for a startup like Knowable, with 32% of Americans listening to podcasts monthly and the e-learning industry projected to grow to $300 billion in the face of steep costs for higher education.

Let us know what you think of Knowable here. 👈

P.S. Members of the PH community get 20% off their first course (use the code producthunt).

AI is coming for VCs, per a new app called AngelFace.

The app started as a facial recognition tool to help retail stores catch shoplifters, but was rejected by investors. Instead, Makers Tosh Velaga and Igor Nefedov pivoted and created a project that identifies whether or not someone is a venture capitalist from a quick photo of their face.

The duo scraped VC pics from Google Images and Signal, a directory for sourcing investors. The idea behind the app is to make it easier to spot VCs in the wild, which is a nice idea for budding entrepreneurs, but could create a paparazzi effect for investors.

Would you use AngelFace to track down a VC? We want to know.

Right now, AngelFace is focused on investors in Silicon Valley. If you live outside of the Bay Area, there are other (slightly less aggressive) ways to get in touch with VCs. A few options:

👀 Glassdollar is a tool that helps you find VCs based on your startup

👀 Investor Hunt is an AI-powered database of over 40K investors

👀 Angel Database is a huge database of over 13K angel investors

A fun social experiment: Ask anybody, anything. More specifically, you can ask celebrities, politicians, friends or public figures anything on a virtual “public stage,” and then people vote to get the question answered.

A new app called hear, hear! is putting this “power in numbers” idea into practice. Unlike traditional AMAs, the app lets the public start conversations with famous people versus the other way around. So far, hear, hear! users have asked things like what advice Elon Musk would give his 25-year-old self and what Eminem’s favorite Italian dish is.

Similar to traditional AMAs, you can then take a Q&A into a designated space on the app (a “room”) to make it more interactive. You can also use a “private room” with a unique password for things like internal meetings and town halls.

According to Maker, Jasper Hauser, the hear, hear! team came up with, designed and built the app under 10 weeks. The app itself is similar to Reddit and Twitter, but a little more playful.

Early reactions were mixed:

“Great new concept! Love the style direction, something new and very refreshing” - Noud 

“Love the Twitter integration for easily connecting with my existing network” - Lachlan

“The problem with asking 'everyone a question' is that you'll get 'everyone's answer' which isn't always the best solution” - Lee

Users can also ask and vote on questions anonymously, which is a slippery slope, and reminiscent of apps like YOLO, Koo and And Be Honest.

If you have questions for the PH team, maybe try asking us on hear, hear! 😉

Today’s Daily Digest was crafted by Product Hunt and sponsored by our friends at Hotjar.

Here’s a thought: What if you could consistently make people go “WOW” whenever they visit your site?

And what if you could understand what ultimately makes them leave your site — so you can give them what they want and make them stay?

Enter: Hotjar.

Hotjar is a user behavior and feedback tool that allows site owners to see how people are actually using their site, and collect feedback to understand why they behave the way they do. 🙌

While traditional analytics tools like Google Analytics provide a bird’s eye view of website traffic, Hotjar goes beyond the numbers with visual heatmaps, session replays and on-page surveys that help answer questions other analytics tools can't. Let’s call it the qualitative side of quantitative data.

What the Product Hunt community thinks:

“I love using Hotjar and have used it in conjunction with Google Analytics for years! I am able to gain so much insight from watching the recordings of people interacting with the site. This is something I would recommend to any digital marketing professional” - Rebecca

“This is a much-needed out-of-the-box product that gives us the heatmaps we want — all for a price and ease-of-use that isn't prohibitive! I was intrigued, and literally had this product spun up in a live web application and recording data in under five minutes” - Nick

The value of this type of feedback loop

Traditional analytics tools can tell you what your users are doing (e.g., 60% quit before completing their purchase), but only website feedback tools like Hotjar can help you understand why this is happening (e.g., the slow delivery rate is making them pause). Once you know the customer experience, it’s easy to see where you can improve.

Hotjar is a leading behavior analytics and feedback software company, used on over 500,000 websites in 180+ countries, with companies including InVision, Microsoft and Nintendo, to name a few.

Earlier this month, FYI (a golden kitty award finalist!) co-founder Marie Prokopets did her first AMA on Product Hunt and we learned a lot. 👏

Marie has a self-described “wild ride of a career,” which includes founding multiple products, working with celebs in the alcohol industry, handling $26M worth of M&A deals and winning awards in comedy writing. She also likes to meditate, burn sage and collect crystals. 🙏

In her AMA, Marie covers SaaS, habits, mental models, startup advice, writing and so much more. While it’s hard to boil down the highlights from the Q&A (read it in full here), we tried:

On her advice for people thinking about launching their first company: In hindsight, there are 3 things I'd recommend. 1) ask yourself the right questions, 2) give yourself the best pep talk you've ever given yourself 3) get practical.

On what she’s learned about writing: Share your writing, even when you think it sucks. I nearly didn't ship a post on remote work tips because I didn't feel like it was good enough (thank you, internal hater). But I shared it anyway, and ever since I shared it people have been thanking me & saying it's the most thorough thing out there.

On scaling startups: Scale should be an afterthought. Make sure to learn everything about your customer and the problem your product is solving. Keep iterating until you build something your customers love. Thinking about scale too early is futile, since you are going to learn so much and your product will keep changing and evolving.

On her mental model for building a business: My first essential mental model/framework is honesty. Is this honestly a big, painful problem for people? Are we honestly solving the problem, or just part of the way there? Is this honestly a category I'm interested in for years to come? Is this honestly a big, growing category?

On her habits: Does Postmates count as a daily habit? 😹

She actually has some really inspiring daily habits (like meditating for 30-45 minutes per day), which outlines more fully in her AMA. Read it here or why not start your own?

“It's easy to be frustrated by the state of the internet and sense of powerlessness over our time/attention/data out here in 2k19” - Tonic Maker Matthew Ogle

Matthew has a point...and a solution. Last week, Tonic launched to serve up personalized, nontoxic reads every day. It’s anti breaking news or hot takes, and just a cool place to discover interesting stuff on the internet. 🙌

Tonic is the first product to launch out of its parent company, Canopy. Canopy is working on a series of digital experiences built around private personalization architecture, meaning they want to promote the power of discovery while keeping your data secure.

The idea behind Tonic is to ultimately cut down on the noise and clickbait that currently dominates most reading experiences on the internet. It’ll help you discover five “delightful” things to read each day, focusing specifically on articles and publications that are lesser known in the existing online ecosystem. 👀

“It looks simple, but Tonic is completely novel under the hood and in how it talks to the server; I like to think of it as a modest ambassador from a different, kinder future.” - Matthew

Would you use Tonic for internet reading? Tell us here.

A few other lesser known curation apps to check out:

🗞Stoop is like a podcast app, but for newsletters

☀️Not Depressing News is...what it sounds like

👀Draft is like if Hacker News and Medium had a child

You’ve probably heard of Casper, the re-inventor of mattresses.

Back in 2014, the New York-based startup took something old (mattresses) and made them new again (by compressing them into a cardboard box), raising $1 million in revenue during the company’s first 28 days in business. 💸

The idea sparked a ton of competitors to do the same, with dozens of variations of smart mattresses, no pressure mattresses and cuddle mattresses that aimed to upend traditional mattress retailers.

The basic business model —bypassing middlemen by selling items virtually — caught on, and gave rise to the larger direct-to-consumer movement. The wellness industry expanded in tandem, and Casper decided it would be more than just a mattress company. 😴

Four years ago, Casper (naturally) expanded to offer sheets and pillows after 18 months of development.

“I want all the things!!!” - Sarah

Then the company launched a dog bed (a trend that has since caught on with other direct-to-consumer giants).

“Definitely thought it said 'designed by dogs' and I was SUPER impressed... I can't help but be slightly bitter that dogs can benefit from Casper mattresses before I've managed to — but that's my fault” - Ben

Last year, the company opened up “The Dreamery” in New York City. It’s a physical space where you can reserve a nook to nap in (on a Casper bed) for $25 per session. A few months later, the company gifted sleepers with Casper Glow, a portable, sleep-friendly light that fills your room with a warm light to help you wind down and wake up more naturally.

“The interaction design with gestures, synchronizing multiple lights, and portability are well thought out. I had always considered getting the Philips wake up light, but the Casper Glow is now on the top of my list.” - Kunal

Just last week, Casper launched CBD Sleep Gummies, which are exactly what they sound like. It's a smart move, as recent data has shown that CBD is definitively on the rise:


“Interesting direction from Casper, but it makes total sense. Another product from Casper designed solely to help you sleep” - Aaron

And that’s where Casper’s reportedly headed — towards a possible IPO as “the Nike of sleep.”