

How to Make the Front Page of HN Without Even Trying - LanceJones
http://page99test.wordpress.com/2010/11/07/making-the-front-page-of-hn-without-even-trying/

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patio11
I once heard somebody -- maybe Guy Kawasaki-- say "Create more value than you
capture.". This has become my guiding principle for marketing on the Internet.
I strongly believe that if you consistently help people out directly, and/or
write/contribute/share in a scalable fashion via OSS/blogging/etc, then they
will be around for you when you need it. This isn't hippydippy fluff :
specific mechanisms like link building for SEO tend to promote it, too.

That is also why I got in touch with these guys: they did something
extraordinarily nice for an HNer, and I wanted to know if there was some way I
could help them out.

FWIW I spend a lot of time helping people out for free and it has lead to more
opportunities than I can even begin to describe. I have never regretted it.
Try defaulting to Yes when asked for help -- it's easy (particularly when you
are obscure), and you might like what happens.

~~~
follower
> I once heard somebody -- maybe Guy Kawasaki-- say "Create more value than
> you capture."

Google and my memory suggest it was Tim O'Reilly (of O'Reilly Media) who
coined (or at least, popularised) the phrase but Guy Kawasaki rephrased it as
"eat like a bird, poop like an elephant".

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anigbrowl
'without even trying?' Seems more like 'if at first you don't succeed...'

 _During our 2-week beta test period, I had tried [unsuccessfully] to get some
initial traction on Hacker News by writing a few posts on this blog about
launching a start up, building an audience, etc. My attempts were likely
unsuccessful because just as we were preparing to launch, there was a glut of
“Ask HN” submissions [...]_

TBH, I think it's more because posts about launching a startup or building an
audience are not interesting unless you're already famous. I do look at 'rate
my...' posts, but I'm a lot more likely to look up someone's company via their
profile because they make interesting posts or comments on a variety of
subjects. If their submissions are always about their own site, I start
avoiding them - like a person at a party who's there solely for networking
purposes, or a personal injury lawyer at a funeral.

Edit: I don't mean that you're doing this Lance. I mean some people who have
posted 100 times but only ever about themselves.

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tobtoh
So it seems people should try and get one of these magical Joanna devices that
generates plenty of page views :)

I think the article is a good example of how you make your own luck and how no
experience is a wasted. I have always liked Steve Jobs speech at Stanford
([http://onemansblog.com/2010/02/01/steve-jobs-outstanding-
sta...](http://onemansblog.com/2010/02/01/steve-jobs-outstanding-stanford-
commencement-speech-from-2005/)) which is along similar lines.

~~~
derefr
More general advice: if you have some special talent—anything at all—then you
can be someone's Joanna. Basically, you just have to "overachieve for
marketing purposes." Don't give crap away for free, while only your paying
customers get the 'real thing'; instead, make sure even the least of what you
do—replying to comments on a forum, for example—is extremely polished. By-and-
large, people's first impression of you will be through something you did for
free, so make those first impressions great, and you'll make them want to see
what _paying_ you gets them.

This advice also applies to companies. If you're an engineering-focused
software company—i.e., a company that has building, not selling, in its
genes—and you have a $1MM budget for advertising, don't spend it on a spread
in the New York Times; instead, invest that money in building a product—like
any other your company would build, for a client, for money—but then _give
that product away_. If you built something that's really useful, it'll do a
much better job of organically spreading your brand than any ad campaign ever
could.

~~~
patio11
You don't have to share the product. _Share the genes_. A lot more people are
interested in software development done right than in whatever your first
product was. You can find any number of examples of this: FogCreek, for
example, is mostly a company built on the premise that developing software
should not have to suck. Their core product (which supports that premise) is
not necessarily interesting to all people, but everything they do rightly gets
the halo effect because they spent a decade improving the lives of engineers
by sharing what they have discovered to work about running a software company.

You could say similar things about 37Signals, Balsamiq, or a host of smaller
companies that I look up to.

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jarin
I think that's one thing a depressing amount of people don't realize about
social networks and online communities. Nobody gives a crap about your company
unless a) it's mind-blowingly cool, or b) they give a crap about YOU.

Unless you're in category A, you're not gonna get anywhere by just shotgunning
a link on every site that has a submit button. You need to give a little (i.e.
participate or provide value in some other way) to get a little.

~~~
jrockway
I disagree. Those who talk loudly and frequently about themselves are the ones
who we see and hear from most on social sites.

Quick example: Dave Winer. Everything he posts anything, even something inane
like "I bricked my iPod", it's on the front page of every social site? Why?
Because he submits it everywhere and constantly talks about himself.

~~~
jarin
Ok yeah that is a good point. So let's add category c) Be persistently
annoying (no half-assing it).

~~~
jrockway
But on the other hand, we have people like patio11, who are not annoying, just
talkative.

In the big scheme of things, a bingo card generator is not really exciting.
But his writing is interesting nonetheless, and it ends up being widely
distributed. If he didn't talk about himself, nobody would know Bingo Card
Creator.

~~~
prawn
Combine it with c) and make it something like 'Contribute and be visible'. No
distinction (at that level) between it being sharing and useful (Patrick) or
just overdone noise (many others), but they're both taking a similar tack.

The bloggers who blog about making money from blogging would be in that
category.

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sliverstorm
Step one: Write a post titled "How to Make the Front Page of HN Without Even
Trying". How could such a post _not_ make it to the front page?

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frossie
Man, I love the idea of launching... and then going out to buy your co-
founding other-half their birthday dinner.

Coolness.

------
axod
title = "<something boring> in Node.JS"

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sabat
"Luck surface area" -- ingenious.

~~~
apitaru
I also love this term. It reminded me of a wonderful post by Marc Andreessen
from 2007, where he discusses "Luck and the entrepreneur.. The four kinds of
luck"

<http://pmarchive.com/luck_and_the_entrepreneur>

In the post, he skillfully dissects the book Chase, Chance, and Creativity
(1978) by Dr. James Austin - a neurologist and philosopher.

