Hopefully I’ve managed to convince you with my previous post why you should try to market your tech startup on Hacker News. The next question is - how?
Many different ways, there are, young padawan. Dig in, we shall.
Show HN post
This is the most common option - with which you talk about what you’ve created. It can take two forms…
numero unos - text post with a link
numero dos - post with link and a comment
While the platform gives no preference to either of the two, I personally think the 2nd one increases your chances of making it on the front page. This is because users tend to check posts with comments more often.
You must follow some official rules when making such a post. There are also plenty of unoficial guides online on what makes a post go viral - Google is your friend. I’d encourage you to read these resources before you post as you’re only allowed to submit it once.
Sharing blog posts
You can set up a blog site associated with your business and share every post you write on Hacker News. Again, there are some guidelines you must follow.
Show HN post for sub-product / service
I mentioned that you can only make a single Show HN post about your business. One way to get around this is to submit a product/service that’s related to your main product. Take this post for example:
Ask HN post
This is when you ask a question and you mention the startup you’re working on.
I’ve rarely seen this work to be honest, but I figured I should mention it just in case.
Comments
You can get involved in conversations related to your product.
If you’re wondering how you can find such conversations - not to worry, there are plenty of automated services out there. I use F5Bot, which is free. There are paid products out there too, you should be able to find them quite easily.
Final words
Hopefully I’ve inspired you to post about your product! If you’re about to do that, check out a little free web app I built that sends notifications every time you get a comment/reply on the platform: https://hackernewsalerts.com/