Everyone talks about launching on Product Hunt. Almost nobody talks about Hacker News, and that's strange to me, because HN is full of exactly the people a technical founder wants reading their launch.
I run a free launch board. The mistakes are boring: posting something HN doesn't allow, writing a title that sounds like an ad, asking friends to upvote it. All three are fixable in an afternoon.
Here's the playbook. The short version: post something people can actually try, write a plain title, stay in the comments, and never touch the votes. Now the details.
Photo by Iván Díaz on Unsplash
Know what Show HN actually is
Show HN is a specific format on Hacker News with its own rules, and HN is strict about them. The big ones:
- It has to be something people can run on their computer or hold in their hands. A product, a tool, a library, a hardware demo. Early and rough is completely fine.
- Blog posts, landing pages, newsletters, and signup pages are not allowed as Show HNs. If people can't try the thing itself, post it as a regular submission instead.
- Your title has to start with "Show HN".
- Every Show HN lands on the "shownew" page first. Once it picks up a few points, it moves to the main Show page in the top bar, which is where the real traffic starts.
- You have to be around to discuss it. Posting and disappearing is the fastest way to waste a good launch.
Read that list again. Every one of these is a rule, not a suggestion.
Make your thing tryable in under a minute
HN readers decide fast. If your launch requires an account, an email, and an onboarding call before anyone can see what it does, you've lost them. This is directly in the guidelines: make it easy for users to try your thing, ideally without signups.
If your product genuinely needs an account, build a demo mode or a sandbox. A video walkthrough is the fallback for hardware or anything that can't be tried in a browser. HN's guidelines say it directly: the fewer barriers between a curious reader and your product, the more feedback you get.
The title is plain, not clever
HN hates marketing language, and its users can smell it instantly. The format that works is boring on purpose:
Show HN: A tool that turns your Postgres schema into a live ER diagram
Say what it is, in the words a user would use. No "revolutionary", no "AI-powered synergy platform", no emoji. If a friend asked what your product does, whatever sentence you'd say out loud is your title.
Then use the first comment for the story. HN's own guidelines ask you to explain how and why you built it. That's where the personality goes: what problem you had, what you tried, what's still broken. The title gets the click. The first comment gets the upvote.
Photo by Bernd Dittrich on Unsplash
Timing matters less than presence
There's no official best time to post, so don't obsess over the clock. What you control is being there when it matters: clear your day. When comments come in, answer them fast and answer them like a person. Thank people for bug reports. Admit what doesn't work yet. HN commenters test whether the founder is real. Show up.
The rule that gets people banned
Do not ask friends to upvote or pile into the comments. Don't drop the link in your group chats with an upvote request, don't post it on X asking for votes, don't coordinate anything. It's against the rules, and posts that break it get flagged and killed.
You can share the launch. Telling people "we're live on Hacker News today" is normal. Asking them to create accounts and upvote is not. The line is simple: readers must decide on their own.
If the post flops, let it. You can try again later with a different page of your site or a meaningfully updated version, but give it real time and don't spam resubmissions. One clean attempt beats five desperate ones.
Where HN fits in the stack
Show HN is one platform, not a whole launch. The launches that work run several platforms the same day: Product Hunt, HN, a couple of relevant subreddits, your own audience if you have one. Each one feeds the others.
And once launch day is over, put your startup where it keeps working for you. I run StartupWiki's launch board, a free place to list your launch for ongoing discovery. Listings get a verification badge and never expire, so the backlink keeps pointing at your product long after the HN thread dies.
Recap
Post something people can try in under a minute. Write a title that says what it is. Tell your story in the first comment. Spend launch day in the replies. Never touch the votes.
That's the whole playbook. HN is one of the last places where an unknown founder with a genuinely useful product can beat a funded team with a marketing budget, but only if you respect the room.
I write about startups and launching every week on my Substack.
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