

Ask HN: for those who successfuly launched on HN, how many attempts did it take? - sharon_k


======
charlieirish
Launching on HN is a risky business. Your product typically only does well if
it exists within the HN target market. Don't ignore luck as an important
factor. HN traffic also doesn't tend to convert that well. It's a little like
Techcrunch - getting a post on TC doesn't guarantee your startup will be a
success.

How to Launch on HackerNews

1) Understand

Read, contribute and build a reputation.

2) Research

Read swombat's Post: [http://swombat.com/2011/1/13/how-to-get-your-startup-on-
hack...](http://swombat.com/2011/1/13/how-to-get-your-startup-on-hacker-news)

Read jacquesm's Unofficial Hacker News FAQ:
<http://jacquesmattheij.com/The+Unofficial+HN+FAQ>

3) Time It

Typically, there are good times to submit on HN. However, take this with a
pinch of salt as if too many people consult these resources, you'll find some
stiff competition.

[http://nathanael.hevenet.com/the-best-time-to-post-on-
hacker...](http://nathanael.hevenet.com/the-best-time-to-post-on-hacker-news-
a-comprehensive-answer/)

[http://blog.itlater.com/whats-the-best-time-to-post-to-
hacke...](http://blog.itlater.com/whats-the-best-time-to-post-to-hackernews/)

<http://hnpickup.appspot.com/>

4) Ask

Reach out to your community and ask for feedback on a post - before you post
it. Make revisions and then ask your community/friends to check out the
/newest page. If they feel like commenting or upvoting, they will.

5) Luck Out

Produce something of high enough quality that the HN community deems it worthy
of the front page. Then enjoy the server thrashing around 10K-100K visitors

------
davidw
HN is a terrible place to launch if it doesn't coincide with your target
market.

~~~
griller
david, that's pretty obvious. Let's assume that OP asked his/her question
regarding to products or services that target HN readers. Come on, share your
stories.

~~~
charliepark
It isn't obvious at all. The OP was 13 words (besides "Ask HN"), and the
poster has no contribution history on HN. davidw's point is completely
relevant.

------
olegp
We soft launched <https://starthq.com> through comments and got a few hundred
visitors. This showed that time on site was high so we launched as a Show HN
linking to a blog post, which got to the front page the first time and drove a
couple of thousand uniques. Let me know if you are interested by upvoting this
comment - would be more than happy to share the details in a blog post.

~~~
griller
and here's a question for you-- when you posted your Show HN, did it
"organically" find its way to the front page? Or did you receive "...a little
help from your friends.."?

~~~
shocks
As I understand it HN has various methods built in to prevent this. i.e, if a
post receives an usually high number of votes in a short period it will be
limited.

------
joelrunyon
I'm always a little skeptical of these questions given that these threads are
made on throwaways and aren't more than a few hours old rather.

It always feels like some PR person trying to figure out how to "game" HN,
rather than trying to add value to the community in the first place.

~~~
djt
Kind of like how Reddit is with AMA's and new movies/albums. The Woody
Harrelson and Morgan Freeman debacles.

------
davidjohnstone
I have a niche cycling site[1] that I successfully launched[2] (and by that, I
mean that I posted a link to it when it didn't have many users) here. By
successful, I mean it spent a while on the front page, got 61 upvotes and 78
comments, and my site got about 5000 visits and a hundred or so signups (even
though the majority of those did little more than sign up) in the following 48
hours or so.

It's a niche site — it appears that all my users are either competitive
cyclists who train using power meters or heart rate monitors, or cyclists with
analytical minds who want to get as much out of the data that their bike
computers as possible — yet it did fairly well, probably because it appeals to
many here, even if they're not potential users themselves.

Oh, and that was the only attempt at "launching" here that I made, and I did
nothing more to promote it as a story here than posting the link (I didn't
tweet a link or get friends to upvote it or anything like that).

1\. <http://www.cyclinganalytics.com/>

2\. <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4453967>

------
easonchan42
I submitted two Show HN posts with link to my Hacker News iOS Client app, the
first post didn't got a single point, I was so disappointed that I just
deleted it.

The second post got 4 points and brings about 120 page views to my app's
website, and about 10 sales for the next 24 hours. After that only about 1~2
download per day.

It's an app for reading Hacker News on iOS, 100 percent HN target market, so
maybe my app just sucks? I really don't know.

I really want to get feedbacks on this, what kind of Hacker News iOS App do
you want? or you just use Safari?

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------
drinchev
Recently, I've submitted exclusively ( only here ), free to use (MIT/OFL
license) icons font set linking to github page. My title was "Show HN ..." .
I'm not posting the link on purpose. And I got 100 page views for the next 24
hours. My post was rated 2 points and basically didn't get to the front page.
It was very strange for me, two days after my submission, when I saw that I
got most of my visitors from Japan, including from Japanese blogposts for my
work.

Also, I got no comments, which I expected, since here people are critical +
constructive in their discussions.

I know for sure that if any post didn't make it to the front page, this
doesn't mean that is invisible for most of the community. There are a lot of
blogs that follow what's been posted here. I hope the visitor impact isn't
related with the time when people submit stuff here!

------
Avalaxy
I tried to launch my app marketing tool twice, to no avail. First I posted a
link to the site itself (appmarketingtool.com), a few days later to my blog
post about it ([http://leoncullens.nl/post/2013/04/13/Windows-8-app-
marketin...](http://leoncullens.nl/post/2013/04/13/Windows-8-app-marketing-
tool.aspx)).

Both stories were only upvoted by a friend of mine. I can't figure out why...
A lot of submissions that reach the frontpage took only a few days to
build/write, I've been working on this with my friend for 2 months.

~~~
cmdkeen
Did you use any other networks to link to the story? Did you tweet the HN url?
Or post it to social media? Did you email anyone who you follow/respect and
ask them to share their thoughts - with the HN thread linked? Your make it
sound like you just added to HN with a single upvote and hoped it would rise
from the noise.

~~~
Avalaxy
You're right, I didn't do those things. I don't know many people with a HN
account. I got a few stories to the frontpage before by just submitting them,
so I figured that would do the trick.

------
nader
the first question to ask back would be what you consider a "successful launch
on HN"?

with our service thinkery.me we had what we would define as success after
launching on HN: we got initial traction, a lot of great feedback and signups.
we have been refining the service and growing since then.

------
wikiburner
A related question I had was whether you are better off submitting your site
as a link or an Ask HN style question with a link to your site in the text? It
seems like submitted links are much more likely to be completely ignored than
"ask" submissions from what I've seen. However, I've heard that "ask"
submissions drop off the front page at a quicker rate.

------
sideproject
Hope your product is in line with the HN's audience - but having said that,
many HN users (I believe) are interested in startups in general, so I find it
interesting to see what areas people are trying to innovate. I posted a link
to my project (<http://www.sideprojectors.com>) and received a few hundred
signups. I found them more than sufficient to do my beta testing.

It's not really the initial post that matters, but what you do with them after
your launch. Even if you get say, 100 users, they are GOOD 100 users! (better
than zero!) and if you believe in your product and continue to iterate + get
feedback from them, I'm sure you can take your product quite far. Of course,
you'll need to do many other things.

------
will_brown
I submitted a "Show HN:" Link (<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5544603>)
for my demo video this past Saturday.

It received only 4 upvotes but the video has about 115 views two days later.

My favorite posts on HN are about new products/startups and even failed
products/startups, but to be fair I should warn if you submit on HN multiple
times for purposes of showing your startup- without a new feature,
achievement, ect...- people may associate your product with spam.

------
FajitaNachos
Mine wasn't a launch per se, but a Chrome extension I had been working on. I
thought it was right up the HN crowd alley, but I only got a few hundred hits
and maybe 10 downloads. I posted it in hopes of getting some feedback
(positive or negative) which didn't really work out.

------
djt
I would so firstly to engage in discussion in this community. I take more time
and expend effort when I see someone has at least some karma through adding
value to this community as a signal of quality. Im sure I miss some good stuff
but it filters a lot of crapola out.

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akmiller
I'm not sure that HN is a place for launching a site. It is, however, a great
place to ask for feedback regarding most new software applications. I've been
given great feedback on a couple of different websites I have done.

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frankdenbow
I just did one submission for Startup Threads
(<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3518728>) and got us a solid number of
signups (around 45).

------
OnyeaboAduba
Really interesting thread I was thinking of post something like this myself.
Tons of good info thanks guys

------
jamesjguthrie
Tried twice and received no up votes. Haven't bothered trying again.

