Ask HN: Did any Show HN posts turn into successful startups? - portobelln
======
mrskitch
I’ve actually had the exact opposite happen: my ShowHN posts got nowhere, but
the product itself became successful. I’m sure that the opposite is also true
as well, but figured folks needed to hear that, just because your ShowHN post
got nowhere, doesn’t mean there’s not a market fit for what you’re building.
It just might not be interesting enough for the HN crowd, or you don’t have
any name-recognition.

For those who are curious the product is browserless.io. Rev chart is here:
[https://www.indiehackers.com/product/browserless/revenue](https://www.indiehackers.com/product/browserless/revenue)

EDIT: here’s my ShowHN post for posterity:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15722617](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15722617)

~~~
muzani
It could be the way it's presented too. What does "headless Chrome as a
service" even mean?

When I look at the Github link, I actually understand what it does: "Severless
Chrome on your own infrastructure. Each session gets its own clean Chrome
context for total isolation. After the session is complete Chrome is shutdown.
You can also think of it like a database connection where your app connects to
browserless, runs some work, and gets results back."

But it's fair. Titles are hard and HN shuns clickbait.

~~~
piptastic
Also you didn't respond to the person who did leave a comment. Tough to have a
post take off that way.

~~~
mrskitch
Hrm, it must have slipped past me, I'll take a look!

EDIT: yeah, this is my bad. Totally missed it and it's a great comment too :(

~~~
piptastic
it's not all bad, you still can :)

~~~
mrskitch
Appears it's locked now? Can't seem to reply :(

------
jfaat
Dropbox:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863)

~~~
Moodles
The first comment on that thread is a typical funny HN comment: “if you’re a
Linux user and do x, y, z and connect the flux capacitor to the warp drive you
can emulate Dropbox no problem”

~~~
entropy_
True, though it's definitely nice to see how that discussion didn't descend
into poo-flinging. The poster replied to the criticism and the critic conceded
that it would indeed be useful, even for linux users :-)

~~~
Piezoid
Sadly, 10 years later, they didn't respond to criticism about removing support
for non-ext4-yet-xattr-enabled filesystems.

~~~
jen729w
I’m leaving because of this. And I give them the ~$100/year for the pro plan.
Screw ‘em.

Also it really shits me that every time I log in I get a little banner that
says “Almost out of space? Try Dropbox Business!”.

One, no, I am not almost out of space. I’m at 15% and if you don’t know that,
there’s something terribly wrong.

Two, I’m not a business. I’m just me. And I already pay for Pro. Get out of my
goddamned face.

/rant

~~~
stareatgoats
Not one to support rants normally but this irritates me too, especially when
encountered in billion-dollar businesses (not only Dropbox). It's like they
can't afford investing a part-time developer and a few extra db queries in
customer experience and retention, which indicates that they are in it for the
fast buck, right or wrong. This type of customer indifference should have a
special, and tarnishing, name.

~~~
52-6F-62
I think it’s more a problem with most companies of any size.

It’s not the devs. The owners likely become sufficiently detached from the end
product and experience and sales/marketing teams are left to squeeze every bit
of fiscal value from the thing. That usually results in battles for new
analytics or new features that usually look like background software/network
bloat, and judging the client to increase their spend no matter what. Those
teams always have to post higher numbers regardless of the market.

Not that I disagree.

------
caseyf
Apr 4, 2011 "Show HN: my weekend project, Gumroad"
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2406614](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2406614)

May 7, 2012 "Gumroad raises $7 million from KPCB"
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3939871](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3939871)

~~~
theunixbeard
Funny to see the $0.70 Bitcoin reference and debate as to whether it would
gain traction:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2407053](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2407053)

Hacker News referencing Bitcoin in April, 2011

~~~
stevesearer
From what I can tell, the first HN post referencing Bitcoin is this one from
February 3, 2009, about a month after its initial release:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=463793](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=463793)

------
andygcook
Depends on how you’d define success. My older brother did a Show HN for his
startup, NanaGram, about four months ago
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17016374](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17016374)

The product’s now delivering family photos in the mail for hundreds of
grandparents every month. They might not be making millions of dollars yet,
but they are making some money and doing lots of good in the world by helping
with elder loneliness. That’s a success to me.

~~~
chris_mc
That is a great idea that not only makes you cash--at a very fair price--but
also helps people connect in a genuine fashion.

~~~
aacook
Thanks. I'm pushing on lowering the price. So many people are out there making
minimum wage. Their grandparents deserve photos too.

------
dvdhsu
We're Retool ([https://tryretool.com](https://tryretool.com)). We're not
successful startup yet. But we're definitely a startup, haha.

We did a Show HN a year ago:
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14515494](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14515494)).
Then we did YC, raised a bit of money (almost entirely off our HN traction),
and launched around a few weeks ago
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17725966](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17725966)).
Now we're profitable!

~~~
mewwts
I'm actually very psyched to use retool in my startup. We're not there yet but
soon!

~~~
dvdhsu
Thanks! Feel free to ping me: david@tryretool.com anytime once you start! I'd
love to help out :)

------
realityking
Contentful ([https://www.contentful.com](https://www.contentful.com)) was
originally a Show HN called StorageRoom:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2616041](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2616041)

It's now a series C startup with over 200 employees and customers like
Spotify, WeWork, Samsung, Nike, Jack in the Box, The British Museum

(I work there)

~~~
childintime
PM: search for "reSpository" snafu on your home page

~~~
realityking
Thank you! Fixed that :)

------
bemmu
I announced Candy Japan here, and have made a modest living off of it for the
past ~7 years.

~~~
cowpewter
I loved your service! I'd still be subscribed if I hadn't gotten diabetes and
had to cut all candy out of my life.

~~~
mikestew
_I loved your service! I 'd still be subscribed if I hadn't gotten diabetes_

Boy, _there 's_ a ringing endorsement! :-)

~~~
cowpewter
Ahahaha, I didn't realize it would come out that way. Rest assured the
diabetes is genetic, and not from the consumption of delicious Japanese candy.

------
bsstoner
DuckDuckGo:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=315142](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=315142)

~~~
jaxtellerSoA
LOL, all the people saying the the name is horrible.

~~~
codemusings
Or the design. But who can blame them:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20080926132853/http://duckduckgo...](https://web.archive.org/web/20080926132853/http://duckduckgo.com:80/)

~~~
jaxtellerSoA
The design has improved significantly over the years.

------
syrusakbary
Graphene: [https://graphene-python.org](https://graphene-python.org) \- HN
link:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10976794](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10976794)

I started working on it almost 3 years ago. Now about 5.000 companies all over
the globe are using it including Yelp, Reddit & Mozilla.

We're profitable and trying to expand our niche (GraphQL in Python) to more
markets. Thinking on applying to YC in not a very far future :)

~~~
danpalmer
I'm interested in how Quiver is going? It looks like this is your main revenue
stream? I've looked at it before and been unsure what it does, and trying it
now it doesn't seem to work for us (no requests ever reach quiver with the
GraphQLQuiverCloudBackend). Is it production ready, or is it in preview at the
moment?

Edit: so the issue was that we had an extraneous trailing comma, which was
turning a string (deprecation reason) into a 1-element tuple, which was then
failing an assertion in the AST serialisation within graphql-core, however
this assertion was being silenced by one of the backends - either the decider
or the Quiver backend.

------
davidjohnstone
The results aren't as exciting as some, but Cycling Analytics pays my bills

[https://www.cyclinganalytics.com/](https://www.cyclinganalytics.com/)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4453967](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4453967)

------
dvirsky
GitLab:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4428278](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4428278)

~~~
bufferoverflow
They just raised $100M at $1.1B valuation.

------
edent
5 years ago I asked a question here -
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6828102](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6828102)

That lead to
[https://unicodepowersymbol.com/](https://unicodepowersymbol.com/)

Not a start-up, but a successful project :-)

~~~
fbomb
The unicode power symbol looks like someone's giving you the finger. Nice.

------
gtbcb
Segment.com (formerly Segment.io) -
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4912076](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4912076)

------
martin-adams
I've been following Nathan Barry with ConvertKit. Not all Show HN gets
traction:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8583911](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8583911)

But that doesn't mean you wont still be successful:
[https://convertkit.baremetrics.com/](https://convertkit.baremetrics.com/)

~~~
RikNieu
This one is incredible.

------
daeken
I announced the creation of a class here on HN (
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5862102](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5862102)
\-- This was a Show HN, but then it was edited for some reason; link is dead
now, but it was a blog post describing the class and had a payment link),
which went on to sell out in the first day, then eventually I posted on HN
that I wanted to sell it (
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14933206](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14933206)
), and was acquired because of the post.

------
romanhn
PagerDuty -
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=758653](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=758653).
Valued at $1.3B this month.

------
hwoolery
My project didn't get much attention on Show HN (or anywhere else), but I sent
a cold email to Mark Cuban and offered to invest pretty quickly. So don't get
too disheartened if your project gets a tepid response.

Orignal post:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14459876](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14459876)

~~~
ss2003
Looks cool, and I love the idea of cold emailing Cuban. How's the progress?

~~~
hwoolery
That app in particular got sidelined for now, but we've released two others
since then:

[http://instasaber.com](http://instasaber.com)
[http://speakingpuppy.com](http://speakingpuppy.com)

------
fouc
Producthunt is a spin off from Show HN.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7144815](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7144815)

------
keerthiko
We started BitGym nearly 6 years
ago([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4519256](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4519256))
and had pretty low traction on here,

By most definitions we've pivoted from tech startup to "profitable small tech
business", staying at 4-6 people. We're no dropbox, but at a solid cohort
paying customers for our reasonably well-loved consumer product we've turned
into a successful (by our personal definitions) company, if not a successful
startup.

------
Edmond
Show HN traffic can definitely have an impact but I'd also urge keeping in
mind the causation vs correlation fallacy.

Also the Show HN posts are not as organic as they appear, in other words I
don't believe you just prepend Show HN to a post and see it go boom...they
won't admit it but there is more happening behind the scene.

~~~
revazquez
Can you clarify what you meant with "happening behind the scene"? Who are
"they" that you are referring to? Thanks!

------
anacleto
Definitely Webflow:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5407499](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5407499)

Great company, great founders, great product.

------
okgabr
Almost 4.5 years ago we launched Instabug (www.instabug.com) on HN
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5526949](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5526949))

Successful is a broad term, but we have tens of thousands of apps on our
platform and our SDK is running on over a billion devices. We did YC and
raised multiple rounds after.

------
nicwest
I think this was the company that became pebble (correct me if I'm wrong).

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2221579](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2221579)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3290884](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3290884)

~~~
sp332
Yup
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_(watch)#Funding](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_\(watch\)#Funding)

------
adam_ellsworth
I'm curious to see how insomnia is doing as a non-traditional startup in that
he didn't "grow" the company (as far as I know). It's one of the best
applications we use in our day-to-day workflow.

~~~
vosper
I've switched to Insomnia from Postman some time ago, out of frustration, and
though I don't use it heavily (a few minutes every week) I really like
Insomnia. There are a number of design decisions in the app that I really
appreciate.

------
ThomPete
Not a successful startup but a successful product. I launched
[https://www.ghostnoteapp.com](https://www.ghostnoteapp.com) in 2015 and it's
going really well. Releasing a new version 2.0 and expanding with chrome
extensions to allow you to annotate even more specific items.

Thanks to HN it became a pretty good success. The original Show HN is here
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9145007](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9145007)

~~~
jaxtellerSoA
>Not a successful startup but a successful product.

What does that mean exactly? Lots of downloads/customers but not enough to be
profitable (or not profitable enough to where it was worth the time and
energy)?

Or is it profitable, but you just don't view your single product as a "start-
up", because maybe it is a one-man-show, and not something you do full time?

~~~
ThomPete
The latter. It's profitable but I don't consider it a startup as it's "just a
product" perhaps at one point when I have expanded the product line enough I
would consider it a startup but for now it's just a nice relatively profitable
product.

------
olegp
I saw this post more than eight years ago and commented on it:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1261786](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1261786)

I then started helping Anton out and we managed to hit the front page a few
more times:
[https://hn.algolia.com/?query=akshell&sort=byDate&prefix&pag...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=akshell&sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story)

To get feedback on the platform, we paid developers to use it to make apps for
our clients, which brought in some revenue. However, we failed to get people
to pay for the service itself, even though we had a couple of thousand
developers signed up and a few hundred apps in production. So we put Akshell
on hold, but stayed in touch.

Three years ago, we reconnected and started Toughbyte:
[https://toughbyte.com](https://toughbyte.com). We initially focused on the
thing that worked at Akshell, i.e. writing software for clients. Almost by
accident, in the end we ended up doing tech recruitment instead. More on that
here: [https://blog.toughbyte.com/whats-next-for-toughbyte-
aed3cf54...](https://blog.toughbyte.com/whats-next-for-toughbyte-aed3cf54c085)

Now we're building a tech recruitment platform. We've been profitable since
day one and have been growing 50% each year. So, in a somewhat roundabout way,
that first Show HN post did result in a startup that's still around.

------
estsauver
We started AirPaper
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10320509](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10320509))
off a show HN, but ultimately started a company Apollo Agriculture
([https://apolloagriculture.com](https://apolloagriculture.com)) that's three
years in now, growing, and helping thousands of families get out of poverty in
Subsaharan Africa.

------
knoxa2511
Sysdig -
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7524144](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7524144)

Raised 68M last week, 100+ total overall - [https://sysdig.com/press-
releases/sysdig-closes-series-d-fun...](https://sysdig.com/press-
releases/sysdig-closes-series-d-funding/)

------
MattBearman
I announced BugMuncher here (since been renamed to Saber Feedback -
[https://www.saberfeedback.com](https://www.saberfeedback.com)), not sure if
it counts as a _successful startup_ , but it's been profitably paying my wages
for a couple of years :)

~~~
pionar
That sounds successful to me! Congrats!

~~~
MattBearman
Thanks! I'm not aiming for explosive growth or a huge exit, so it's probably
more of a 'life-style business' rather than a startup, but that suits me just
fine :)

------
borski
Tinfoil started as a Show HN back in 2011:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2291944](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2291944)

Successful is a broad term, but we're still kickin' and growing fast. :)

------
eps
Depends on what "successful" is, but these guys keep crunching out really good
software -

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8027405](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8027405)

------
yakshaving_jgt
Not sure if "successful", but
[https://newbusinessmonitor.co.uk/](https://newbusinessmonitor.co.uk/) makes
me some pocket money — not nothing; half-way to "Ramen Profitable" — and was
also accepted into the Advisory Track of this year's YCombinator Startup
School which I'm quite proud of. I did a Show HN in May last year, and _I can
't believe_ how ugly and crappy the service was back then in comparison with
how it is now.

This reminds me that I should document the history of projects I work on.

~~~
j0ncc
Is there a US version of this? Cool service!

~~~
yakshaving_jgt
Not as far as I'm aware, but people have started asking for the same thing for
US and Australian companies. I _might_ end up expanding NBM to include other
countries, provided I can reliably source the data.

------
tango12
Hasura - [https://github.com/hasura/graphql-
engine](https://github.com/hasura/graphql-engine) Show HN:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17540263](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17540263)

We'd been building the tech (realtime GraphQL on Postgres) for a while, but
the HN launch gave us the initial visibility and a tremendous number of users,
reviews. And within the last few weeks we have several users in production and
enterprise clients too. :)

------
sharmi
Indiehackers.com started here and was acquired by Stripe

~~~
jslakro
Best of examples here. You have been done a great work compiling information
from others

------
Liriel
Hashnode - a community for developers -
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11018763](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11018763)

~~~
benatkin
Somehow I was unaware of Hashnode. Just checked it out, and it's really neat!
It's a lot like dev.to or Coderwall, but seems to be more like a traditional
social network than those two, in terms of people hanging out and posting
memes and stuff.

------
ivm
My time tracking app[1] was bootstrapped with over $15k in sales from Show
HN[2]. Without a launch like this, it would be much harder to work on it in
the first year when organic sales were low.

[1]: [https://qotoqot.com/qbserve/](https://qotoqot.com/qbserve/)

[2]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11778077](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11778077)

------
searine
Mastodon :
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13303346](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13303346)

------
eruci
Yes. I did a Show HN for [https://geocode.xyz](https://geocode.xyz) about a
year ago, revenue is up over 1000% YTY - although there could also be other
factors at play. HN is where I got the best criticism though. The key to
success is being able to know where you suck early on.

------
derwiki
Dec 31, 2012 "Show HN: my weekend project, CameraLends"
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4987929](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4987929)
(7 upvotes)

Aug 5, 2013 "I launched my weekend project 7 months ago on HN – here's
CameraLends today" (124 upvotes)

Jan 10, 2017 "KitSplit Acquires CameraLends Becoming Biggest Online Camera
Rental Company"
[https://www.forbes.com/sites/nataliesportelli/2017/01/10/kit...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/nataliesportelli/2017/01/10/kitsplit-
acquires-cameralends-to-become-biggest-online-camera-rental-
company/#61065b3f4d5d)

~~~
lexnay
What prompted you to do the Aug 5th 2013 update?

~~~
derwiki
Seemed like a lot of progress from my initial MVP, and because the initial
Show HN didn't get a lot of attention.

------
jwblackwell
Yes! We launched BuzzSumo 5 years ago almost to the day:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6437712](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6437712)
and we were acquired by Brandwatch last year.

------
karthikvellanki
Can't find the thread, but Segment started after the ShowHN post got a great
response.

~~~
gpmcadam
Mentioned elsewhere in this thread, but here's the link
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4912076](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4912076)

------
rwieruch
I did a Show HN for my React book two years ago
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13170837](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13170837)
Since then I transitioned from being employed at a startup to being self-
employed where I split my time doing 50% consulting work (which is passively
generated through my blog) and the other 50% for educational platform/books
[https://roadtoreact.com](https://roadtoreact.com) Hacker News gave me one of
the initial feedbacks which made me follow this passion :)

------
marknadal
We ([https://github.com/amark/gun](https://github.com/amark/gun) /
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7587814](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7587814))
raised $2.6M for our "Open Source P2P Firebase" and now have Internet Archive
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17685682](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17685682))
and others doing terabyte / daily traffic on us. All started here on HN! :)

------
jsamuel
ServerPilot ([https://serverpilot.io/](https://serverpilot.io/)) --- Show HN:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6733631](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6733631)

Our Show HN post didn't get much attention, but we also didn't have our
marketing hopes set on that. We did turn into a successful startup, not in
terms of raising money but instead in terms of growing off of revenue.

------
mmattax
Nov 14, 2014 -
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8653575](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8653575)

Not much traction on our Shown HN post, but we've had a lot of growth through
our standup bots in Slack and Microsoft Teams. Still very much a startup, but
we've re-branded to [https://jell.com](https://jell.com), have 4 employees,
and a growing customer list!

------
ph0rque
I did a Show HN on my side project, AutoMicroFarm, two years ago (although I
have been working on it and posting to HN about it much longer than that).

Thanks to HN, I was able to get into the YC fellowship program. After
launching and not getting any traction, I almost quit. However, I realized I
did not know how to do marketing, sales, or customer dev (the "people want"
part of "Make something people want"). It wouldn't be fair to the idea of
AutoMicroFarm, or to myself, to quit without trying to learn
marketing/sales/customer dev and applying it to AutoMicroFarm.

So this year, I hired a business coach
([https://solacelessons.com/](https://solacelessons.com/)) and continued
working on AutoMicroFarm. I can't claim it's successful in any meaning of the
word yet, but I have a solid framework in place for my social media/email/blog
outreach, I am talking to people to figure out what they want, and starting to
make revenue--all while having a day job, a side gig (both related to web
dev), and a family. I've been really happy to make this progress while keeping
the hours spent on AutoMicroFarm to 5-10 hours per week.

~~~
Kagerjay
No offense, but your website is just as ugly as your business coaches _pink
shadow on dark blue text is just... like really? I 'm getting nausea just
looking at your coaches site_

There are so many great wordpress themes and premade static page templates you
could use, why are the fonts on your site so terrible? The vertical spacing
and kerning make my eyes bleed, especially on the FAQ.

Are you sure your business coach actually knows what they are doing? Even the
font on your logo is terrible too _Federant, serif...?_ , the font is
extremely dispropionate to the logo. There is simply too much crap going on in
your logo as well, the roots are distracting and don't scale well for small
image sizes. Doesn't YC fellowship recommend business coaches already as part
of their program?

Maybe design isn't your thing, but you should seriously consider paying a
professional to redo your entire branding and website. Its hard to have a
social media / email / blog outreach strategy when these essential
requirements aren't met yet. Its a oneclick install in many instances, adding
a few images, and some text and that's it

I don't know how long you've had your business coach either, or what things
she has outlined and actionable steps moving forward. Nor do I know what
things you have gained since then. So I don't really know either way. But if
website / logo redesign wasn't one of the lowest hanging fruits / highest
priorities on that list then I question the coaches' effectiveness. Its cheap,
fast, and easy to get a nice site done these days with existing templates.

 _Also, why do I get the feeling this comment 's intention is just to solicit
traffic to your coaches site. Well for one, why does she already know about
this comment on hackernews?_

~~~
ph0rque
Thanks for the feedback. I am starting to redo the website, I haven't updated
the design for a while.

However, your comment comes across as really mean and unnecessary. I really
doubt someone would come across it and think, "I really like the concept and
would even be willing to pay for the products and/or services, but the logo
font is Federant serif, and the FAQ spacing and kerning literally made my eyes
bleed, so I can't see anything now."

Your reply to my coach is much more constructive and actionable. Please
refrain from making comments like the one I am replying to, and strive to keep
your comments constructive and actionable.

Have a great day.

~~~
Kagerjay
Fair enough, I am sorry I offended you. You are right that comment was
unnecessary and uncalled for. Design is a very particularly touchy subject to
me. Sometimes I get in the heat of the moment and write down all my thoughts
down unfiltered. I feel very strongly about every piece of information
presented to me, and I feel even more strongly about lost potential

If you want constructive critcism, I suggest adjusting your line-height
properties and font-family to something like Arial or roboto. If you want a
quickfix, just add these 3 lines in your `body` tag
[https://i.imgur.com/33lI25Z.png](https://i.imgur.com/33lI25Z.png)

Without changes
[https://i.imgur.com/91Pv9Sh.png](https://i.imgur.com/91Pv9Sh.png), with
changes [https://i.imgur.com/nA7JYub.png](https://i.imgur.com/nA7JYub.png)

For your font-logo I suggest simplifying it and removing some of the finer
details. This is a quickdraft I made following the same guidelines that your
logo emphasizes. Remove 2 fish, and just focus on one fish with bubbles to
emphasize a complete cycle.
[https://i.imgur.com/fSWf2fJ.png](https://i.imgur.com/fSWf2fJ.png)

~~~
ph0rque
Thank you so much for your apology, change of tone, and helpful hints! <3

Do you have any suggestions about which font to pick? I like Federant because
it seems rustic/"farmy" yet modern at the same time.

As far as the logo itself, I meant to play around with making it a responsive
SVG ([https://tympanus.net/codrops/2014/08/19/making-svgs-
responsi...](https://tympanus.net/codrops/2014/08/19/making-svgs-responsive-
with-css/)), but it would take me quite some time to climb the learning curve
to do so. Unfortunately, the designer who made it for me did not provide an
SVG file.

Again, thanks for your help!

~~~
Kagerjay
I wouldn't worry about SVGs. The vast majority of logos are usually made in
adobe illustrator / affinitydesigner/similar in vector .eps/.ai format.

When it gets exported its almost always a .png file. The logo you have doesn't
benefit from SVG. The only ones that really benefit from it are things like
gitlab's animated logo
[https://i.imgur.com/FuxVepX.gif](https://i.imgur.com/FuxVepX.gif). SVG tends
to overcomplex things, sometimes designers circumvent it using embedded font-
families instead.
[https://fontawesome.com/icons?d=gallery](https://fontawesome.com/icons?d=gallery)

Serif definitely is in the right ballpark for font families you are looking
for. I really like the artofmanliness when it comes to older styles.
[https://www.artofmanliness.com/](https://www.artofmanliness.com/). They use
"BLACK" found here I believe.
[http://www.fontspace.com/category/rustic](http://www.fontspace.com/category/rustic).
Other farmy rustic styles
[http://www.fontspace.com/category/rustic?p=3](http://www.fontspace.com/category/rustic?p=3)
→ Altantida

I tend to think of "barber shop fonts" when I think of old rustic "farmy"
feel, because farmers would cut their own hair. And barbershops are still one
of the few places that still use old traditions of knife shaving. Other good
examples would be "speakeasy" bars, cowboy style.

The font you have is more castle/medieval/serfdom font instead of old farmy
rustic. Technically, its not actually a bad font though for what you are going
for, actually I looked through it is one of the better options. The logos font
height needs to be the same size as the logos height though. Example
[https://i.imgur.com/NEMKnhT.png](https://i.imgur.com/NEMKnhT.png) . Change
the size font-size here to 2.5rem.
[https://i.imgur.com/KJGAlxe.png](https://i.imgur.com/KJGAlxe.png)

I wouldn't suggest using federant for your actual paragraph text tags though.
Keep that part simple and use Arial or Google Roboto

Hope this helps out

------
radiKal07
NomadList ?
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8107222](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8107222)

------
milanmot
Winfify, the company which made the successful A/B testing SaaS product Visual
Website Optimizer(VWO) is bootstrapped and successful with $18 millions in
revenue.

Their first submission was in 2010:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=876141](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=876141)

~~~
paraschopra
Thanks for the mention. The name of the company is Wingify.

Here's the Ask HN for Visual Website Optimizer that got 0 comments:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=991252](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=991252)

This product has gone to help Wingify bootstrap to $20mn in annual recurring
revenue. So there's hope even if an 'Ask HN' doesn't fly :)

------
kevinconaway
Checkr

Started 4 years ago[0] and raised $100m 5 months ago[1]

[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7937476](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7937476)

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16820699](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16820699)

~~~
RikNieu
I'm getting a DNS error on [https://checkr.io/](https://checkr.io/).

Just me?

~~~
stephenhuey
I am as well.

*edit: Looks like it's at [https://checkr.com](https://checkr.com)

------
daniel_iversen
Not sure what the underlying intent is with this question, but great question
and love reading the answers.. Also, I always thought that the main purpose of
the “Show HN” posts weren’t about some big user generating promotion, but
rather to solicit feedback from friendly fellow entrepreneurs and business
people.?

------
thecodemonkey
We posted our side project as Show HN almost 4 years ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7095228](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7095228)

As of Monday, both co-founders are working on it full time as a fully
bootstrapped business.

------
lquist
Posted a Show HN about 6 years ago. On the front page for about half a day. We
hold our cards close to our chest because ours is a competitive industry, so
pardon the anonymity, but we are bootstrapped and did $10m+ in revenue last
year with a healthy profit. Much love, HN :)

------
jefozabuss
I remember at least one (Stripe)

------
kull
Segment [https://blog.ycombinator.com/peter-reinhardt-on-finding-
prod...](https://blog.ycombinator.com/peter-reinhardt-on-finding-product-
market-fit-at-segment/)

------
megaman8
I would imagine that every successful/not-successful startup would post on
Show HN. There are entire lists of places to post stuff, and I'm sure Show HN
must be in the top 10.

------
raminassemi
Close.io:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5135295](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5135295)

------
Vanit
Don't have the link handy, but Gitlab is one.

------
gesman
One blog post on my own crappy blog - turned into ~$1M so far.

------
sidcool
Dropbox did.

------
kashosoft
Always interesting to read comments about the product after 10 years and it`s
success :)

------
patrickg_zill
Did Balsamiq start as a Show HN?

