SwellSlots - Week 1 Post-Launch Update.

TL;DR: Launched 5 days ago. 706 users. Reddit crushed HackerNews 8:1 for traffic. People are reporting missing surf spots which weirdly made my whole week. Someone reported "My Momma's House" as a missing beach. It's the internet.

The Launch

Of course we hoped the HackerNews Hug of Death would give us a running start... and it kind of did, especially with our unique angle — the 90's art style (I still call it the Street Fighter 2 look-alike).

We posted on HackerNews, /r/sveltejs, and /r/InternetIsBeautiful. The design angle (InternetIsBeautiful) was by far the most successful. Got great feedback and compliments on both platforms.

The Numbers (5 days, Google Analytics)

• 706 active users (694 new — basically everyone discovering us for the first time)

• ~1,400 views on the main forecast page, 33.5% bounce rate — two-thirds clicking around feels decent for a new app

• 28s avg engagement — not amazing, but for a forecast tool where you glance and go, I think that's actually fine?

• Traffic: Reddit (~249 users) crushed HN (31 users) roughly 8:1. The visual/design angle just resonates more there — people see the SF2 grid and go "wait what." Direct traffic was 369, suggesting lots of link sharing in DMs/WhatsApp groups. Facebook: 5 users (lol).

Missing Surf Spots — Next Big Focus

SwellSlots has 2,000+ surf locations with metadata we painstakingly built up via AI queries, web searches, and enrichments (beach type, direction facing, sheltered vs open, etc).

We've had 12 reports of missing spots since launch — huge confidence boost that people actually want to use this. Of course one was "My Momma's House." It's the internet, what are you gonna do?

Streamlining the process of adding new beaches and enriching geo-data is the priority — gives that "we're alive and listening" feeling.

Weather Gotchas

Before this app I didn't know the details of weather predictions. Most weather APIs are decent but their spatial resolution is poor — data comes from sea buoys 5-9km apart. For surfing, that might as well be another country.

Our solution: a localized (to the beach) interpretation of weather data based on break type, wave direction, tides, and beach geometry (sheltered vs open water, angle it faces, etc). Hoping to get better ground truth data to validate these algos, but time and patience will tell.

Marketing & Next Steps

Reddit is the clear winner. Posting with a specific angle — design, tech stack, AI pipeline — rather than "hey look at my app" actually works. People engage when there's something interesting about how you built it, not just what it does. Doubling down there.

This week's todos (13 → 20 April): a) Add the 12 missing surf beaches from reports b) Identify 3 more subreddits with genuine, relevant angles c) Fix minor SEO issues flagged by Google Search Console