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Ask HN: Did any Show HN posts turn into successful startups?

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Ask HN: Did any Show HN posts turn into successful startups?

#51

Post by olegp »

I saw this post more than eight years ago and commented on it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1261786

I then started helping Anton out and we managed to hit the front page a few more times: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=akshell&sort=byDate&prefix&pag...

To get feedback on the platform, we paid developers to use it to make apps for our clients, which brought in some revenue. However, we failed to get people to pay for the service itself, even though we had a couple of thousand developers signed up and a few hundred apps in production. So we put Akshell on hold, but stayed in touch.

Three years ago, we reconnected and started Toughbyte: https://toughbyte.com. We initially focused on the thing that worked at Akshell, i.e. writing software for clients. Almost by accident, in the end we ended up doing tech recruitment instead. More on that here: https://blog.toughbyte.com/whats-next-for-toughbyte-aed3cf54...

Now we're building a tech recruitment platform. We've been profitable since day one and have been growing 50% each year. So, in a somewhat roundabout way, that first Show HN post did result in a startup that's still around.

Re: Ask HN: Did any Show HN posts turn into successful startups?

#52

Post by rasikjain »

MattBearman wrote: post #26

I announced BugMuncher here (since been renamed to Saber Feedback - https://www.saberfeedback.com ), not sure if it counts as a successful startup , but it's been profitably paying my wages for a couple of years :)

I remember seeing the launch post few years back. I tried your demo and thought it was an excellent product.

Good to hear that. Best of luck.

Re: Ask HN: Did any Show HN posts turn into successful startups?

#53

Post by stareatgoats »

jen729w wrote: post #42
Piezoid wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly, 10 years later, they didn't respond to criticism about removing support for non-ext4-yet-xattr-enabled filesystems.

I’m leaving because of this. And I give them the ~$100/year for the pro plan. Screw ‘em. Also it really shits me that every time I log in I get a little banner that says “Almost out of space? Try Dropbox Business!”. One, no, I am not almost out of space. I’m at 15% and if you don’t know that, there’s something terribly wrong. Two, I’m not a business. I’m just me. And I already pay for Pro. Get out of my goddamned fac…

Not one to support rants normally but this irritates me too, especially when encountered in billion-dollar businesses (not only Dropbox). It's like they can't afford investing a part-time developer and a few extra db queries in customer experience and retention, which indicates that they are in it for the fast buck, right or wrong. This type of customer indifference should have a special, and tarnishing, name.

Re: Ask HN: Did any Show HN posts turn into successful startups?

#54

Post by yakshaving_jgt »

Not sure if "successful", but https://newbusinessmonitor.co.uk/ makes me some pocket money — not nothing; half-way to "Ramen Profitable" — and was also accepted into the Advisory Track of this year's YCombinator Startup School which I'm quite proud of. I did a Show HN in May last year, and I can't believe how ugly and crappy the service was back then in comparison with how it is now.

This reminds me that I should document the history of projects I work on.

Re: Ask HN: Did any Show HN posts turn into successful startups?

#55

Post by Chive »

yakshaving_jgt wrote: post #54

Not sure if "successful", but https://newbusinessmonitor.co.uk/ makes me some pocket money — not nothing; half-way to "Ramen Profitable" — and was also accepted into the Advisory Track of this year's YCombinator Startup School which I'm quite proud of. I did a Show HN in May last year, and I can't believe how ugly and crappy the service was back then in comparison with how it is now. This reminds me that I should doc…

Like the page, but jesus, the sound of the chat popup opening up made me jump :-)

Re: Ask HN: Did any Show HN posts turn into successful startups?

#56

Post by fbomb »

edent wrote: post #30

5 years ago I asked a question here - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6828102 That lead to https://unicodepowersymbol.com/ Not a start-up, but a successful project :-)

The unicode power symbol looks like someone's giving you the finger. Nice.

Re: Ask HN: Did any Show HN posts turn into successful startups?

#57

Post by nikk1 »

entropy_ wrote: post #29
Moodles wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The first comment on that thread is a typical funny HN comment: “if you’re a Linux user and do x, y, z and connect the flux capacitor to the warp drive you can emulate Dropbox no problem”

True, though it's definitely nice to see how that discussion didn't descend into poo-flinging. The poster replied to the criticism and the critic conceded that it would indeed be useful, even for linux users :-)

There is value in being able to ask hard questions without being condescending. It is a rare skill these days to be able to handle those questions with tact.

Re: Ask HN: Did any Show HN posts turn into successful startups?

#58

Post by tixocloud »

dvdhsu wrote: post #13

We're Retool ( https://tryretool.com ). We're not successful startup yet. But we're definitely a startup, haha. We did a Show HN a year ago: ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14515494 ). Then we did YC, raised a bit of money (almost entirely off our HN traction), and launched around a few weeks ago ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17725966 ). Now we're profitable!

We’re hoping to follow your lead with Orchestra (http://orchestrahq.com)

Traffic has been ok but had 1-2 leads so far.

Re: Ask HN: Did any Show HN posts turn into successful startups?

#59

Post by ph0rque »

I did a Show HN on my side project, AutoMicroFarm, two years ago (although I have been working on it and posting to HN about it much longer than that).

Thanks to HN, I was able to get into the YC fellowship program. After launching and not getting any traction, I almost quit. However, I realized I did not know how to do marketing, sales, or customer dev (the "people want" part of "Make something people want"). It wouldn't be fair to the idea of AutoMicroFarm, or to myself, to quit without trying to learn marketing/sales/customer dev and applying it to AutoMicroFarm.

So this year, I hired a business coach (https://solacelessons.com/) and continued working on AutoMicroFarm. I can't claim it's successful in any meaning of the word yet, but I have a solid framework in place for my social media/email/blog outreach, I am talking to people to figure out what they want, and starting to make revenue--all while having a day job, a side gig (both related to web dev), and a family. I've been really happy to make this progress while keeping the hours spent on AutoMicroFarm to 5-10 hours per week.

Re: Ask HN: Did any Show HN posts turn into successful startups?

#60

Post by blablabla123 »

Moodles wrote: post #20
jfaat wrote: post #4

Dropbox: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863

The first comment on that thread is a typical funny HN comment: “if you’re a Linux user and do x, y, z and connect the flux capacitor to the warp drive you can emulate Dropbox no problem”

I do exactly that since 3 years (git though without ftp), having almost stopped using Google Drive. Dropbox I don't use since 5 years or so ;)
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