Hit The Frontpage of HN 4 times. Twice in one week. AMA
I write essays on entrepreneurial science. Not exactly the stuff HN is waiting for, yet I've done pretty well.
If anyone has any questions about HN, just leave a comment and I'll be happy to help.
What do you think separates your posts that made it to the front page from your other articles that didn't gain traction on HN?
Luck.
If I had to pick one other factor, it's the title you use.
Technical people (especially the ones with the Silicon Valley mindset) have a disdain towards anything psychological. This includes marketing, branding, advertising, and so on.
Thus, they operate off the ridiculous axiom that people are econs (how mainstream economics says people SHOULD behave in theory), instead of humans (how they ACTUALLY behave in the real world.)
For some reason, this phenomenon is significantly less extreme here at IH.
Possibly because we don't raise–which cures any founder of their delusions in a hurry.
So in conclusion, hackers aren't special. They're subject to the principles of persuasion just like any other person, so writing good copy matters a lot. Don't let them tell you otherwise.
Thanks for the response!
I've noticed that luck plays a significant factor as well. Sometimes my articles reach the front page on my first submission, sometimes they flop entirely, and sometimes they reach the front page after the third or fourth re-submit.
I've been more successful this year than in the past, and one of the key differences has been in the topics I've chosen.
In the past, I'd kind of just write about whatever I happened to be working on, so I might explain how I got pre-rendering to work with Vue or tricked a legacy app into using Google Cloud Storage as a backend.
This year, I started being more selective about topics, so I wrote about things that had more of a mainstream technical audience like code reviews or questionable data collection at Stripe. Almost everything I published this year made it to the front page (eight of nine posts), whereas in previous years, it tended to be around 20-30%.
Yeah, good point Michael.
Type of content mattes a lot. I'm not a software engineer, so I don't talk about that. But if you have that luxury, it's definitely smart since that's who's mainly on HN.
Congrats! Four times is a lot. I have a few questions about trying different titles and timing of post:
When you try different titles, do you go back and also change the title of your article as well? Or do you keep the same title on your blog post but keep trying different titles on HN until something clicks? I've seen cases where clicking on a HN article leads to a completely different title so wanted to clarify.
How many title trials before you know it's too many or an indication that you should move on?
Do you delete posts if they're not having any traction immediately? I've noticed that the few times my content got to the front page for a few minutes (more details below), I got strong signal within an hour – like 5 votes in one hour. And since HN lets you delete posts under an hour, I tend to delete if I don't see any votes. Curious if this applied in your case as well.
In your experience, did timing/day of posting affect your posts?
More context: I've had a few posts that did well on other sites (e.g. Reddit with over 50 awards) but zero luck on HN even after trying multiple titles (never got more than 3 votes). At the beginning of the year, I had a few tweets that did well also on HN. One got to 15 votes (front page for a few minutes) but people complained that the tweet was too short (completely agree). So I started writing longer contents but couldn't replicate success. Kinda made me give up on HN. Also read your past post earlier in the year – really good tips.
I recommend not doing this, as it's explicitly against HN's rules:
Source: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
You just have to leave up the failed attempts and accept the shame like the rest of us. : )
I read replies from the top down so didn't see you already addressed this so thank you.
Oh shoot – thanks for flagging this.
Thanks brother, and thanks for the kind words about the earlier essay.
It depends. HN isn't my main priority. If I feel an essay is extremely good and it's not getting the attention it deserves, I pretty much keep trying until it hits. There's work I created over 15 months ago that I'm still pushing on occasion. E.g. https://www.younglingfeynman.com/essays/antinetworkeffects
I do not change my article. That's not necessary. Only the headline on HN. When you're in consumer mode, have you every clicked on a clickbait headline and the video ended up slightly different, but because it was so good you didn't mind? That's how you should think about it.
Before anyone strawmans, notice I said "so good that you didn't mind." If people are mad, obv they did mind.
I don't really ever stop. There's a shit ton of luck involved. I discovered that when I published one of my best works The Art Of Business, Where Science And Business Depart, and it went nowhere.
One day, I thought about it and posted it again. Again, 2 maybe 3 upvotes. A mod picked it up, changed the title, and it exploded. 36 hours on frontpage or something.
To answer a Q you didn't ask: I repost by feel. I always iterate on each submission. In the first few days, I might try twice or 3 times. Then I just go by feel. If I think about it two months later, I'll post it again.
I think it's better to keep it natural vs. having a rigid system. Err on the side of posting it once every 1 or 2 months after you've tried a couple iterations in the first week. Reposting 6ish times a year is fine. Reposting 100 times a year will probably get you in trouble.
It's important to remember that you're on HN to make the lives of users better. Not to get eyeballs to your site. So you wanna repost with the mindset of, "You will love this but you just haven't seen it yet." Not, "I know you hate this but I'm just gonna keep beating you over the head with it."
As hackers our job is to look for ways to bend the rules. Deleting posts is breaking them and it'll hurt your account. Don't delete anything. Instead, if you're not satisfied with the performance, try again.
There are some annoying goody two shoes that believe you shouldn't do anything but follow the rules to a tee. That's, of course, idiotic. So ignore them.
5 is actually not bad at all. If you get around 5, usually you should start to see an uptick really. 5 upvotes should also drive a fair amount of traffic, although HN converts like shit.
I haven't tested time of day rigorously enough to say for sure. My guess is, if you tested it rigorously, you could probably find a statistically significant effect. But it's since luck is the main factor, I don't think it's worth bothering with.
EDIT: Oh, I forgot something very important. DO NOT just post your own shit. HN has built-in code that checks to see if you just spam your own shit. If you do, it'll hurt your account and the value of an upvote goes down such that, for example, you need two upvotes before you see one. Just behave like a consumer. Post cool stuff and occasionally your own stuff. I like to publish marketing papers and business strategy literature and mix it with an essay I think is particularly good. I publish daily, so it's definitely overkill to publish that much on HN. (Incidentally, also true for Reddit.)
Really solid tips here and I appreciate the concrete advice.
That last tip – definitely guilty! Sigh. And it makes a lot of sense (use the platform like a consumer). Thanks a ton!
Yup.. made that mistake too.
I still do. But that's how you learn. Just have to find that nice balance between paying the bills and being able to afford luxuries such as food xD, and also selflessly adding value.
If your heart is in the right place, most people will give you plenty of leeway.
I don't have any questions (by now, but probably later ... ) just passing by to say Congratulations !!
Love it🖤
Your essays are great. maybe that's why.
I really like "The practice" one.
I don't like your website though. it's very wonky.
can't click post on archives.
can't highlight certain parts of the post when reading.
slow-ish transition.
big logos on desktop.
plain old wordpress will work fine.
mobile works good
Thanks that's very kind of you.
Yeah, that's great feedback. The website sucks. Need to do a redesign and make it significantly more user-friendly.
Thanks for the constructive criticism.
Let me add one comment to a question no one asked.
I do not believe HN is a good source of traffic for several reasons.
• You get mainly window shoppers. They come check it out, and leave. HN Traffic convert probably a good 20X less well than Twitter.
• HN is insanely critical. Rarely, with any good arguments too. You get a lot of "I hate this, therefore I hate you," but phrased eloquently. Reddit arguably might be a bit worse, since it's easier to get noticed there, while on HN you're more likely to get lost in the crowd.
• Even if your stuff is received well, my HN subscribers tend to be less engaged than subscribers from another platform like Twitter. Possibly because there's a selection bias, or perhaps because your Twitter audience keeps seeing you on Twitter, so it's easier to build a relationship.
• Even if you're really good, and I think I know what I'm doing, It's still a lottery. This is my biggest gripe with HN. You write something really good, you post it, and then you hope for the best. In the unlikely event you win the jackpot, then what, exactly? You get an influx of subs/users, but there's no momentum. Almost no one refers their friends via email. Contrast this to Twitter. If you grow your Twitter audience, a % goes to your product via your bio. As you grow, you get more of a snow ball effect because each like or retweet has more impact. That means growing faster will get easier and easier. With HN, you're not building up anything.
It takes little time to just post a link, so DO use it as a traffic channel, but do not base your entire strategy around HN.
Spot on. Will keep this in mind.
My pleasure :)
If you enjoyed this, I share more stuff like this on www.YounglingFeynman.com/subscribe.
All part of my evil scheme... help ppl out and perhaps they'll consider checking out my work. Mu-aha-ahahhah... evil laugh fades..
“Laugh fades” 🤣
I did check it out before. Don’t think I’m the target audience though as I’m looking more for experiences/case studies on platforms and distribution.
But will keep an eye out in case you move in that direction.
No worries <3