Results from launching on HackerNews
Hi everyone!
I launched my product 1000 Pound Club (https://1000pound.com/) on HackerNews yesterday and wanted to share my results.
It was a pretty big failure!
Let me explain what happened and curious to get some thoughts on this.
I followed advice from @levelsio and had 5 friends upvote the post in the first hour. According to him, this should be enough for the post to rank on the front page.
The post didn't rank at all despite having more upvotes than other posts and even 1 organic comment.
I think the post was marked as spam/promo. Technically, you're not allowed to ask friends to upvote or comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html#ring).
I'm unsure if the post was flagged by an algorithm or a mod. Some of my friends created new accounts to upvote my post, so it wouldn't be hard to detect with an algorithm. One of my friends commented that my app was great, but this comment was deleted by a mod.
Overall, I got about 5 people to view my landing page leading to 0 signups. Watching recordings on Hotjar, people generally viewed the page for about 1 second and left.
I'm not too worried about this failed launch since HackerNews isn't my target audience anyways.
Today I'll be launching on several gym-related subreddits, which is much more targeted. I'll post the results of that launch tomorrow, hoping it goes better!
Have you launched on HackerNews before? Curious if you had a similar experience.
If you want day-to-day updates on my progress, check out my Twitter:
https://twitter.com/alexanderqchen
From 0 to 100 Users: How I Built an AI Humanizer as a Student
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"Some of my friends created new accounts to upvote my post, so it wouldn't be hard to detect with an algorithm."
New Accounts are always a indication of something fishy. They would have better used there older Accounts.
Yes definitely! Was happy when a friend already had an account to upvote with, but most of my friends don’t use hackernews apparently. It seems like an upvote from a new account may be worse than no upvote at all.
What about the launcher having a fresh new Hacker News account when launching ? Probably bad too, I suppose ?
For whatever reason, this seems more ok to me! I don’t know what HackerNews really thinks though.
It seems my launch failed really bad . My Post is "invisible" right now. I launched one hour ago. I can't find any information about why the post is not visible. I sent an e-mail to the HN team. Let's see.
Edit : It seems my post is [dead]. If some friendly HN users are here, please vouch my post and revive it !
Edit 2 : A moderator has finally set the Post on /show ! We'll see what happens
Ok new update after the events from yesterday : I had a calm and silent launch :
10th position : 12 pts - 105 visitors - 620 visits - 0 discussion
Not good not terrible.
I've only had one HN launch go well and honestly it was one where I literally just posted and forgot about it. Ended up on the front page for 11-hours, got 2 sales for a total of 500 GBP. One of the customers I upsold another 700 GBP of dev work to. Another interesting thing was because I sent people to a GitHub repo instead of the landing page I also got 250 github stars which is just a nice feeling and a little social proof.
Every other launch crashed and burned. I think too many people pin their hopes on HN launches. Sure you can get tons of traffic if you get on the front page but it's a very critical very hard market to sell to. And if something is too promotional they'll just not catch on. Even if you get to the front page via a ring.
Haha it always feels good when you forget about smth and it turns out really good!
I've had one post make it to the front page of HN, but many more that have failed. My learnings are:
Utilize "Show HN" to showcase your product.
Create a product that people can immediately use and provide feedback on—this means avoiding signups if they're not necessary.
If a signup is necessary, clearly communicate the product's value—include a video, a demo page, or an application that allows people to explore before committing.
Engage with everyone who replies.
My successful post garnered 116 upvotes.
(By the way, I just learned about your fantastic Reddit launch. Congratulations!)
Wow that's a really impressive HackerNews launch!
Thanks for all the great insight. I definitely had a feeling my launch showing a mediocre landing page, then requiring a signup was probably not the most effective. I'll keep your advice in mind for my next HackerNews launch!
Good luck! But be careful on subreddits a lot of the communities don't allow self-promotion. You could try some of the paid advertising that reddit offers instead. They have some $100 promotion I think for an ad campaign when you sign up.
Yaa, I was worried my account would get banned off of these subs. I think self-promo is a gray area. If I said “Go check out my app…”, that’s pretty clear promo and I probably would’ve been banned. My language “I built…” technically doesn’t ask people to do anything and just states a fact. Again, definitely a gray area.
Didn’t know they offered $100 promotion! Will definitely check that out! I wanted to try organic advertising first before trying paid advertising, but I’ll keep that in mind if/when I go down that route.
This just doesn't seem like a good fit for HN; why not launch on Reddit instead?
I did! Posted about it here:
https://www.indiehackers.com/post/results-from-launching-on-reddit-943b431d47
tl;dr you’re right, results were much better
We actually launched twice on show HN. It went horribly the first time and a lot better the second. I find that launching on HN requires authenticity. Don't overthink it. Also, having friends create accounts to upvote doesn't work. The accounts have to be genuine ones and you can't link directly to the page to solicit upvotes. If you're getting friends to help, have them scroll and click.
Ahh that makes sense! I linked my friends the post instead of telling them to scroll down. I did feel like that could look suspicious though.
What did you do different between your first and second launch on HackerNews?
The first one was not very descriptive, and the product was initially a Telegram bot. We learned that Telegram bots don't do well on HN as North America adoption of Telegram is really bad. Generally, we followed pointers in an article, but I'm not allowed to post links...
Edit: timing is very important. Make sure your post goes up at the start of the day, Eastern Time.
good luck!!
Thank you!
One thing that I learn in any kind of marketing, trying to find a loop hole or a tactics is not that worthy. You can do it as side quest but not as main promotional tactics. Because current system is sophisticated enough that it is harder to get away with spam rather than providing real value.
On top of that spamming will not really bring the real customer but providing value will because people who need the value that you are providing is better suit for the product.
I got banned for like 5 - 6 reddit account, multiple twitter account and multiple youtube account. Some reach quite significant number of follower and views but since my tactics is not sincere, sustaining it very hard and you always one step away from being banned.
Instead of asking friend to vote you up, maybe you can try reach out to communities and build email list before launching ( there was one post here in indie hacker where the founder do blogging only for about 6 month before launching ).
There is other way that bring better outcome than spamming or trying to beat the system, which you can check it out here : The No 1 Rule For Marketing, Don't Spam But Do This Instead
Here's my post about the Reddit launch if you're curious!
https://www.indiehackers.com/post/results-from-launching-on-reddit-943b431d47
Yes! Absolutely. I mostly launched on HackerNews just to try out the strategy, it wasn’t meant to be a major funnel for me. The idea of the strategy is to get a few friends to upvote so that the post gets to the front page, so there are more eyes on it. Then just leave it to HackerNews to see if people are actually interested in it. I know I had 5 fake likes, so if even after being on the front page, you still only have 5 likes, clearly the product did not interest people. If the post gets attention and stays on the front page, then there was definitely some interest. It’s mostly just a test.
To your suggestion, I actually launched on Reddit yesterday with much more success because the users were actually targeted. Will write up a post about the Reddit launch soon!
Does it provide workouts like Stronglifts or is it just used for tracking? I like how the profiles look - especially the little diagram with the goal of each lift.
It won’t guide you through workouts or tell you how much to lift, so just for tracking.
Can you tell me more about your site? I don’t like to sign up until I have received some value from a site or know I will.
I’ve lifted on and off and about to start stronglifts 5x5 shortly. What does your site do for me?
Sure! Here’s my public profile if you want to see the site “in action”:
https://1000pound.com/profile/QxPGQR8WeVa3SxfFrVouqNF8uKI2
The site is admittedly pretty similar to stronglifts. The main differences are:
1000 pound club focuses on just the powerlifting lifts (bench, squat, deadlift) while stronglifts also includes row and OHP. Stronglifts is better if you want to follow a single simple workout plan. 1000 pound club is better if you care about the powerlifting metric of “total weight”
1000 pound club has shareable profiles (like the one I linked above). I’m hoping to add some more social features soon as well. Imagining like a friends list with a leaderboard of everyone’s total weight to add a semi-competitive feel like fitbit does.
Hey @alexanderqchen, I wrote about our experience and tips about hitting the front page back in 2021 (just before we got into YC). Hope it helps:
https://www.workflow86.com/front-page-of-hacker-news/
Thanks for sharing!
Hey @alexanderqchen!
Cool. I like the gameification and "membership" aspects of the idea. I would encourage you to think in terms of conversion percentages. At each decision point of your funnel, you are going to convert a certain percentage. Once you have had 1,000 people hit the page, you will have enough data to be able to determine your "click through rate" to get to your landing page, and your landing page to account sign up conversion rate. For example, if you have 10,000 impressions, and get 100 click throughs, that is a 1% CTR. From that 1%, you can then track what your landing page to sign up conversion is, which might be another 1%. If you are getting more than 1%, you are doing fantastic. 0.1% is not unusual for a first product. You can determine the "resonance" with your potential customers by the conversion rates...if you are getting really low conversion rates, the bait and the fish are not compatible. The same bait might work fantastic in a different stream. Keep at it!
Craig
Thanks for the tip Craig! I‘m still a while away from 1000 hits, but will keep this in mind when I get there.
Thanks for sharing. It makes sense that HN has a mechanism to distinguish between organic vs. non-organic upvotes.
On a side note, could you please share your launch experience on reddit? I tried launching on a few subreddits for the first time last week, but mine wasn't even posted because it didn't pass the moderators.
Here's my post on the Reddit launch if you're curious!
https://www.indiehackers.com/post/results-from-launching-on-reddit-943b431d47
Yes! I just launched in Reddit today and the results were surprisingly good! I’ll make sure to post more details about it tomorrow.
very interesting! In my experience, hackernews audience have a very strong sense of community and conform to the guidelines.
If they smell something fishy, they ignore😂
Yes! This is my impression as well. Will definitely need to be more careful next time.
I won't exactly call it a 'hack', but responding to every single comment boosts rank while reflecting sincerity of the poster, of course, given you receive any.
Timing your post seems to be somewhat useful too.
Good point! I received one comment organically and made sure to respond quickly. I also timed my post for 9am PT / 12pm ET, which was around midnight for me. I didn’t really research if this timing was ideal though, just went off of my intuition.
I will probably SHOW today or tomorrow on HN. I won't hesitate to share the results with you ! Thanks for your feedbacks.
Hope launch goes well! Would love to hear your experience tmrw. I did “Show HN:” as well btw
The rule of thumb is always provide real value and a reason to click.
I don't know what you did but if you're going to launch on HN you need to do more than just post a short comment and a link to your app.
Maybe write a blog post telling the story of how you came up with the idea for your app. Make it more interesting by talking about the struggles you went through or something.
I mean look at some of the top posts on HN right now...
People want something with substance. You can't win by cheating. Give and you shall receive.
Hey! I wouldn’t consider my post “cheating”. There’s an entire section of HackerNews that’s meant for you to show your product to HackerNews readers (Show HN). That’s the kind of post I made.
I admit that the upvote strategy can be considered “cheating”, but it was something I wanted to try. I hope it was clear from my post that doing this kind of “cheating” can lead to negative consequences.
Sorry, I didn't mean to imply you where being dishonest. My point is really just about providing value based on my own limited experience with HN.
You tried to launch and it failed but I don't think that's the end of it. You should absolutely try again, maybe with a different tactic. That's why I suggested writing a blog post or something.
Alternative ideas might be to post it on reddit or find forums / groups specifically about lifting and try there. Even so, the same rule applies about telling your story or providing value.
Here's my post on the Reddit launch if you're curious!
https://www.indiehackers.com/post/results-from-launching-on-reddit-943b431d47
Thanks for clarifying and thanks for the feedback! Will absolutely keep trying. I launched on Reddit yesterday with much more success, will write up a post about that soon. Also, sharing my launch experience here is kind of just another funnel. I am generally pessimistic with HackerNews now, but I agree it could still work for me if I do more storytelling.
Maybe you can try list on affordhunt, that maybe better
Gosh, for real?
You didn't deserve to succeed if you don't follow the rules. I had the best launch ever on PH.
You usually cannot promote your posts like that, with the exception of Product Hunt.
Glad your launch went well