
How my startup got to #1 on both Product Hunt and Hacker News - pieterhg
https://levels.io/product-hunt-hacker-news-number-one/
======
rwhitman
With these "I had a wild overnight viral success, here's what I did" posts
there is _always_ secret sauce that the author leaves out of the equation.

I just love that in an article titled "How I got my startup to #1 on both
Product Hunt and Hacker News by accident” that the author never actually
answers the question properly. Chances are he doesn't really know why it went
to #1, or is avoiding the truth to make it seem like it was just sheer sweat
that pushed it over the edge.

The factors that pushed authors of these "how my thing became an overnight
hit" posts to the top are pretty cut and dry. The winning combo was typically
that they A) have already built up a key early distribution network of viral
influencers via twitter a blog etc and B) that they have an uncanny knack for
nailing down sticky, well designed, well positioned products in an exciting
niche - a skill that for most people doesn't come naturally.

I know of at least 3 people who tried to make similar products that never got
a lick of attention. Why? A) They have no audience and a social network with
zero influencers and B) Their products we clunky/ugly and kind of sucked.

Just wish more of these posts stopped beating around bush and misleading
junior entrepreneurs into thinking that simply building something is enough to
score a hit. You need to have an audience to distribute it to, and you need to
be really killer at nailing down product / market fit early on. That's the
secret sauce.

~~~
k-mcgrady
>> "You need to have an audience to distribute it to"

If you've read the article the take away should be this isn't the case. He
used the audience available on ProductHunt and HN to make it go viral. It was
also a really useful product.

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minimaxir
This confuses correlation and causation. Getting to #1 of _any_ link
aggregator is _pure luck_ and there's no way to game it. Many site with the
same production values as the OP's are submitted every day yet get no votes.

 _Staying_ at #1 for an extended period of time is a related but slightly
different story.

That being said, the massive decline after the spike is a good example why
getting to the top of HN isn't a make-or-break event for startups.

~~~
k-mcgrady
>> Getting to #1 of any link aggregator is pure luck

I disagree. There is luck involved but you can increase your chances. e.g. the
time at which you post is important. Is anyone on the site or are they in bed?

~~~
minimaxir
I will admit that logic is not incorrect because I was the one who made that
very claim: [http://minimaxir.com/img/hn-front-
page.png](http://minimaxir.com/img/hn-front-page.png)

The variation, however, is minimal between the timeslots. That image didn't
also look into the game-theoric implications of other successful posts during
that time.

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marcamillion
Not to be pedantic, but the notion of launching "12 startups in 12 months" is
ridiculous.

I am sure you mean "12 apps in 12 months".

A startup is a company that is positioned for high-growth (both in headcount
and user count). See PG's post on Startups.

What I have seen here are apps.

Please don't mistake me, what the OP has done is pretty cool and hard in and
of itself. Getting all of that attention for all of your projects is no easy
feat.

But 4 startups it is not.

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keesj
Love these types of 'behind the scenes' articles showing the whole story
including decision making process, data, graphs, etc. Great job on both the
article and NomadList! :)

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rrhoover
Fantastic write-up. Great to see the steps level's took to validate demand
with minimal effort and ways he maximized the the opportunity once it started
to take off.

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ingend88
For nomadlist, it uses google doc backend with a decent frontend. Can someone
point to an example code that would help do that ?

~~~
pieterhg
This is the code in PHP:

[http://pastebin.com/QzE1pNQ2](http://pastebin.com/QzE1pNQ2)

~~~
ingend88
Is there a way to do this with JS ?

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pieterhg
Server got crushed by HN, getting it back up :)

~~~
frik
Nice site (nomadlist.io) and thanks for the blog post.

I noticed the "Level of safety" of the city "Salzburg" is "very high" in your
spreadsheet but the CSV parser doesn't recognize it (shows zero stars, instead
of 5).
[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Y6TNGpUkoCQzLtATw4Le...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Y6TNGpUkoCQzLtATw4LeIUFGTsZbXBx0mQAT_csKtyY/edit?pli=1#gid=2004237302)

~~~
pieterhg
Thanks, fixed the data :)

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jabo
The revenue per price point graph looks like a really cool and useful data
visualization technique. Thanks for sharing.

