Ask HN: How should we interpret our specific “Show HN” results?

#1

Post by stijn » Wed, Aug 20, 2014, 3:17 PM UTC

We did a “Show HN” on Monday ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8193301 ) for Sheldonize. And I’d like to share some of the results, and ask you for any clues to help explain those results.

The “Show HN” link itself got 5 points (as of now), and 1 comment. Not bad, but really close to bad though. We did get a fair amount of traffic:

288 sessions, 241 users (over Monday 18th August and Tuesday 19th August -- compared to 99 sessions and 71 users the Monday-Tuesday before). We have a video on the front page which was viewed 45 times (18% of users). The video percentage is good I find.

Q1: is 241 users a “normal” average for HN? Or is that “well, no, there seemed to have been little interest in your product. that’s the clue. take it.”

Q2: is it normal that 241 users result in roughly 5 points and 1 comment. Or is it again about taking the hard truth, and “yeah, no, no-one really liked your stuff”?

Regarding sign-ups for the free trial, the situation got even bleaker: 2 sign-ups in that period.

Q3: Is that “well, there was a video which reached 18% so HN readers are not that interested in signing up, as they want to give you feedback, which they could based on the video.”?

Q4: Is that “well, you indicate that this would be a paying service after the 1 month free trial” so there is a huge wall stopping people from trying something where they feel they will not want to pay that kind of money (3.99 per month) anyway?

Q5: Or (and this is open-ended), are there any “well, I think this and this should be improved on the landing page, I think that could explain the few sign-ups”?

Q6: Or, well, we are just not that into you (the product)?

Thanks a lot; I hope that with your help I can let this data “speak” a bit better to me such that we can appropriate actions!

Re: Ask HN: How should we interpret our specific “Show HN” results?

#2

Post by quantisan » Wed, Aug 20, 2014, 3:44 PM UTC

Yes this is a data point to consider. But do realise that it is, in fact, a single data point. Try not to draw too much from it.

Secondly, there are so many variables involved to convert a HN post down to user conversion. It could be your HN title, time of day, landing page, etc. Some factors are within your control, some are not. So who knows what happened from that one post.

I hope this is useful.

Re: Ask HN: How should we interpret our specific “Show HN” results?

#3

Post by stijn » Wed, Aug 20, 2014, 3:51 PM UTC

quantisan wrote: post #2

Yes this is a data point to consider. But do realise that it is, in fact, a single data point. Try not to draw too much from it. Secondly, there are so many variables involved to convert a HN post down to user conversion. It could be your HN title, time of day, landing page, etc. Some factors are within your control, some are not. So who knows what happened from that one post. I hope this is useful.

thanks; yes, that's useful. I probably also got my hopes up pretty high (reading too much success stories of "our servers were screaming after a Show HN")