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

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

#151

Post by aacook »

andygcook wrote: post #79

Depends on how you’d define success. My older brother did a Show HN for his startup, NanaGram, about four months ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17016374 The product’s now delivering family photos in the mail for hundreds of grandparents every month. They might not be making millions of dollars yet, but they are making some money and doing lots of good in the world by helping with elder loneliness. That’s a…

I think I got 1 or 2 customers from the ShowHN post. To date, I'd estimate 15-20 customers have been from Hacker News. Those 15-20 have been enormously helpful with customer feedback. In fact, I'm deep on some improvements one of our vocal HN customers suggested the other day. Back to the code cave now.

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

#152

Post by aacook »

biagidp wrote: post #150
andygcook wrote: post #79

Depends on how you’d define success. My older brother did a Show HN for his startup, NanaGram, about four months ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17016374 The product’s now delivering family photos in the mail for hundreds of grandparents every month. They might not be making millions of dollars yet, but they are making some money and doing lots of good in the world by helping with elder loneliness. That’s a…

I created an account to say that's really cool. I love seeing business that serve under-represented groups in the tech world.

Thanks! You created an account on HN or at NanaGram? :)

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

#153

Post by aacook »

chris_mc wrote: post #129
andygcook wrote: post #79

Depends on how you’d define success. My older brother did a Show HN for his startup, NanaGram, about four months ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17016374 The product’s now delivering family photos in the mail for hundreds of grandparents every month. They might not be making millions of dollars yet, but they are making some money and doing lots of good in the world by helping with elder loneliness. That’s a…

That is a great idea that not only makes you cash--at a very fair price--but also helps people connect in a genuine fashion.

Thanks. I'm pushing on lowering the price. So many people are out there making minimum wage. Their grandparents deserve photos too.

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

#154

Post by mrskitch »

pc86 wrote: post #107
mrskitch wrote: post #103

I’ve actually had the exact opposite happen: my ShowHN posts got nowhere, but the product itself became successful. I’m sure that the opposite is also true as well, but figured folks needed to hear that, just because your ShowHN post got nowhere, doesn’t mean there’s not a market fit for what you’re building. It just might not be interesting enough for the HN crowd, or you don’t have any name-recognition. For those w…

Even if the type of person who browses HN religiously is your exact target market, just posting at a bad time or being unlucky enough to post right before other relevant big news comes out is enough to get buried.

This is a good point. My lessons from this are to pick a time when traffic isn't as high so you have a chance of gaining some visibility. Getting on the frontpage during non-peak hours is better than getting on page 2 during peak hours.

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

#155

Post by piptastic »

mrskitch wrote: post #140
piptastic wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also you didn't respond to the person who did leave a comment. Tough to have a post take off that way.

Hrm, it must have slipped past me, I'll take a look! EDIT: yeah, this is my bad. Totally missed it and it's a great comment too :(

it's not all bad, you still can :)

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

#156

Post by GFischer »

realityking wrote: post #87

Contentful ( https://www.contentful.com ) was originally a Show HN called StorageRoom: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2616041 It's now a series C startup with over 200 employees and customers like Spotify, WeWork, Samsung, Nike, Jack in the Box, The British Museum (I work there)

Nice! My team was actually looking for a solution like this.

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

#157

Post by ss2003 »

hwoolery wrote: post #147

My project didn't get much attention on Show HN (or anywhere else), but I sent a cold email to Mark Cuban and offered to invest pretty quickly. So don't get too disheartened if your project gets a tepid response. Orignal post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14459876

Looks cool, and I love the idea of cold emailing Cuban. How's the progress?

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

#158

Post by soneca »

mrskitch wrote: post #103

I’ve actually had the exact opposite happen: my ShowHN posts got nowhere, but the product itself became successful. I’m sure that the opposite is also true as well, but figured folks needed to hear that, just because your ShowHN post got nowhere, doesn’t mean there’s not a market fit for what you’re building. It just might not be interesting enough for the HN crowd, or you don’t have any name-recognition. For those w…

My counter-example of a "successful" post with a failed product.

I did more than a couple of Show HNs. The most upvoted one (49 upvotes) was one of the first ones with a mostly crappy product [0].

I was just starting to learn to code, it was an ugly, amateurish CRUD, lacking a lot of basic features.

Unsurprisingly, it went no where. Not because of the software quality, but the product itself.

It was an idea of organizing sales prospects info based on my own experience as a salesperson and the way I organized myself using Excel sheets. It was a neat idea and I believe that's why it was upvoted.

I even had one of those "why should I use this product if I can do it myself with excel?" comments [1]. Turned out this one was right, as it was an excel sheet turned - unnecessarily - into a web app.

The evidence is that I got only one or two signups, who never came back after the first visit.

[0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7768857

[1] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7769115

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

#159

Post by realityking »

childintime wrote: post #120
realityking wrote: post #87

Contentful ( https://www.contentful.com ) was originally a Show HN called StorageRoom: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2616041 It's now a series C startup with over 200 employees and customers like Spotify, WeWork, Samsung, Nike, Jack in the Box, The British Museum (I work there)

PM: search for "reSpository" snafu on your home page

Thank you! Fixed that :)

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

#160

Post by [deleted] »

aacook wrote: post #153
chris_mc wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a great idea that not only makes you cash--at a very fair price--but also helps people connect in a genuine fashion.

Thanks. I'm pushing on lowering the price. So many people are out there making minimum wage. Their grandparents deserve photos too.

[deleted]
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