Alright, this is something I rarely do. Hell, it’s something I never do. And yet ProductHunt’s YourStack is easily one of the most satisfying products — and product launches — I’ve ever seen. So, credit where credit is due here; let’s dive into what I’ve seen so far.
I’ll begin this by admitting that I am still on YourStack’s waitlist, so saying “what I’ve seen so far” is to be taken quite literally; I haven’t seen everything. But god damn, even this waitlist feature is beautiful.
Firstly, the YourStack waitlist doesn’t lock you out of the site. Being waitlisted serves as a functional demo; you can follow people and add your own stacks, but your profile is locked from viewing and your feed isn’t based on the people you follow. This is genius; YourStack is intensely community-driven, so it’s vital that content is consistently added to the site. At the same time, you want to manage server load for new members. This set-up strikes a nice balance.
I’ll also give a shout out to the growth hack in use in allowing people to use tweets and invites to get a higher position in the cue. Good WoM spread. My last point on this part is a small nitpick — both sentences end in “sooner”, and it kind of throws off the flow. Just sayin’.
Speaking of content building, YourStack is so efficient in this you almost wouldn’t believe. The Twitter integration here is really what’s clutch; there’s an automatic Twitter login, that develops your profile for you based on information from your Twitter account. Not only that, but everyone you follow on Twitter who also has an account on YourStack is automatically followed. The first step friction here is practically zero. It’s impressive.
That’s not all. The onboarding process forces you to at least stack a few items in order to fully complete the profile. That being said, the onboarding still isn’t that big of a deal… probably took me three minutes maximum.
Moving on, we finally come to YourStack’s main page; the feed. The page further increases engagement by creating an infinite scroll feed sorted by recently added, ascertaining virtually endless amounts of stacks.
Stacking, in itself, is a pretty self-explanatory process. There are two pathways – one is by pressing the big “Stack” button at the top, where you’re prompted to find a product and then write a short, optional review. The second pathway is going to a product’s page (either by hover or by click) and pressing the stack button there. This reminds me a lot of Letterboxd’s smooth film logging feature, which I’ve always enjoyed.
So, there are my overall thoughts on YourStack. I may do an addendum to this post later after I get past the waitlist, depending on if there’s demand. I know for a fact I’ll be following this app closely; it feels like I’m probably part of the main consumer profile they were targeting.
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