I know HN is owned by Y-Combinator. But, as a popular and homogeneous platform there must be many possible ways to earn from it. So what is HN's business model and how its value is measured?
Ask HN: What is Hacker News's business model?
1–10 of 48 posts
Re: Ask HN: What is Hacker News's business model?
#2I'm not sure there is a business model or a quantitative framework for measuring its value. I imagine it's just a cool thing they built and put it out there ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Re: Ask HN: What is Hacker News's business model?
#3HN’s business model is to put the YC brand in front of a technical, entrepreneurial, audience.
Re: Ask HN: What is Hacker News's business model?
#4If it’s anything it’s content marketing for YC. I suspect it’s origin is that it was just something pg wanted.
Re: Ask HN: What is Hacker News's business model?
#5I don't think this was how it got started but you can think of HN as content marketing / recruiting channels for YC.
Re: Ask HN: What is Hacker News's business model?
#6My humble perspective, HN serves several purposes:
1) Top of the funnel lead gen for emerging companies (for YC to invest in).
2) Persistent advertising for the YC brand. You can’t use HN without associating it with Y Combinator and by being useful it brings in millions of views to the brand at relatively little cost
3) A proprietary way to learn more about the founders they invest in. I’ve read a users HN profile (what they like dislike, quality of comments) is an important source of unadulterated intel.
As for value, I wouldn’t know how to calculate it but given the size of their “classes” and speed of rise, it clearly serves as a very effective in bound funnel for investing in quality startups. Definitely in the millions, not sure if billions unless it directly contributed to their biggest and best investments.
EDIT: I’ve left out other ancillary benefits like a distribution platform for YC companies looking to hire and such.
Lastly, value is relative. The value of HN to YC (or to perhaps other VCs) is larger than the value to say me who couldn’t make as much use of the benefits enumerated above. There are a lot of intangibles here.
Re: Ask HN: What is Hacker News's business model?
#7For some reason this post reminded me of a new rule by by Bill Maher:
Now, I know what you're thinking: "But, Bill, the profit motive is what sustains capitalism." Yes, and our sex drive is what sustains the human species, but we don't try to fuck everything.
Re: Ask HN: What is Hacker News's business model?
#8My two cents: HN creates and maintains the impression of YCombinator being a cutting edge nexus for hacker and startup culture, the virtual water cooler you want to be seen next to saying something clever when important people walk by. It also provides advertising for YC startups via related threads and the who's hiring pages.
Re: Ask HN: What is Hacker News's business model?
#9Y-Combinator maintains this platform ( in my own opinion ) for two reasons
1) it's a neat place for likeminded people to share and discuss interesting topics
2) this is a byproduct of 1. by gaining popularity from 1. they gain more exposure to a lot of smart people, which turns out great when they post job ads, or new companies reveals, as well as a lot of people apply to y-combinator, which in turn means they get to be very picky in who they invest.
But HN doesn't have a business model per se. same with Reddit communities.
Re: Ask HN: What is Hacker News's business model?
#10I'm not sure there is a business model or a quantitative framework for measuring its value. I imagine it's just a cool thing they built and put it out there ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
1. Do cool stuff.
2. ???
3. Profit!
More seriously, I thought HN was a showcase for arc.