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

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161–170 of 185 posts

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

#161
post #157

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?

That app in particular got sidelined for now, but we've released two others since then:

http://instasaber.com http://speakingpuppy.com

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

#162
post #91

Show HN traffic can definitely have an impact but I'd also urge keeping in mind the causation vs correlation fallacy. Also the Show HN posts are not as organic as they appear, in other words I don't believe you just prepend Show HN to a post and see it go boom...they won't admit it but there is more happening behind the scene.

Can you clarify what you meant with "happening behind the scene"? Who are "they" that you are referring to? Thanks!

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

#163

Dec 31, 2012 "Show HN: my weekend project, CameraLends" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4987929 (7 upvotes) Aug 5, 2013 "I launched my weekend project 7 months ago on HN – here's CameraLends today" (124 upvotes) Jan 10, 2017 "KitSplit Acquires CameraLends Becoming Biggest Online Camera Rental Company" https://www.forbes.com/sites/nataliesportelli/2017/01/10/kit...

What prompted you to do the Aug 5th 2013 update?

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

#164
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”

Some interesting context for this comment: "Congrats Dropbox" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16660140 BrandonM: It's funny how often that comment—which I made as a 22-year-old undergrad—resurfaces. Someone even reached out to me 2 weeks ago because they wanted to use it in an article as an example of "the disconnect between the way users and engineers see software"! I like to think that I've gained a lot of per…

Interesting. Thanks for sharing.

I hope BrandonM isn't haunted by his comment or anything. It's not really a big deal right? Can't we just have a chuckle about it and move on? Besides, his comment was the top voted one (simultaneously my comment has a lot of upvotes too). We all get things wrong from time to time, especially at a young age. Big deal. He's probably been right a million times but nobody remembers those.

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

#165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Thanks for the feedback. I am starting to redo the website, I haven't updated the design for a while. However, your comment comes across as really mean and unnecessary. I really doubt someone would come across it and think, "I really like the concept and would even be willing to pay for the products and/or services, but the logo font is Federant serif, and the FAQ spacing and kerning literally made my eyes bleed, so…

Fair enough, I am sorry I offended you. You are right that comment was unnecessary and uncalled for. Design is a very particularly touchy subject to me. Sometimes I get in the heat of the moment and write down all my thoughts down unfiltered. I feel very strongly about every piece of information presented to me, and I feel even more strongly about lost potential

If you want constructive critcism, I suggest adjusting your line-height properties and font-family to something like Arial or roboto. If you want a quickfix, just add these 3 lines in your `body` tag https://i.imgur.com/33lI25Z.png

Without changes https://i.imgur.com/91Pv9Sh.png, with changes https://i.imgur.com/nA7JYub.png

For your font-logo I suggest simplifying it and removing some of the finer details. This is a quickdraft I made following the same guidelines that your logo emphasizes. Remove 2 fish, and just focus on one fish with bubbles to emphasize a complete cycle. https://i.imgur.com/fSWf2fJ.png

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

#166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so how do you compete with Google? Headless chrome is supported in Google Functions

That's a good question. We've been doing this for ~year, whereas Chrome on App Engine/Functions has _just_ recently come out. So we've got a bit of a head-start and our infrastructure is pretty hardened at this point. Also a few other points: - We've got some REST-based API's that make it dead-simple to interact with Chrome for the majority of the use-cases out there. Plus you're not restricted to having to maintain…

Can vouch for this. Joel is a machine. Not sure how he’s able to do all of this single handed but Browserless is one of those niches where someone who legit listens to their customer does a much better job than a ~trillion dollar company.

It’s simple. This is browserless’s bread and butter. For GCP, it’s just another feature for someone to get a promo.

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

#167
post #42
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…

There's a chance that's there because some split test showed it increases conversions to their (presumably) more lucrative business payment plan.

Probably got tests running to see what exactly keeps people around when they get onto the plan.

When you've got that many users, I think it becomes norm. I remember a funny story about how Google tested hundreds of shades of blue to see which exact shade lifted click through rates the most. The standard default blue won.

I can't agree that the impact on UX is worthwhile in the long run but I can see how such things can be attractive when you haven't got the, I dunno the right word for it, "clout" to look past the immediate bottom line like Amazon or Apple had when people were betting on them.

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

#168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so how do you compete with Google? Headless chrome is supported in Google Functions

That's a good question. We've been doing this for ~year, whereas Chrome on App Engine/Functions has _just_ recently come out. So we've got a bit of a head-start and our infrastructure is pretty hardened at this point. Also a few other points: - We've got some REST-based API's that make it dead-simple to interact with Chrome for the majority of the use-cases out there. Plus you're not restricted to having to maintain…

One feature that's not available or easy to use is audio from the chrome session. Browser page navigation works well in most places, sound not always. We've been having issues with pulseaudio s/w channels just going bad.

BTW, anyone know of a simple SPA checker/monitor?

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

#169

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)

This is very timely for me — thanks!

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

#170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some interesting context for this comment: "Congrats Dropbox" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16660140 BrandonM: It's funny how often that comment—which I made as a 22-year-old undergrad—resurfaces. Someone even reached out to me 2 weeks ago because they wanted to use it in an article as an example of "the disconnect between the way users and engineers see software"! I like to think that I've gained a lot of per…

Interesting. Thanks for sharing. I hope BrandonM isn't haunted by his comment or anything. It's not really a big deal right? Can't we just have a chuckle about it and move on? Besides, his comment was the top voted one (simultaneously my comment has a lot of upvotes too). We all get things wrong from time to time, especially at a young age. Big deal. He's probably been right a million times but nobody remembers those…

Actually, that comment by BrandonM is occasionally referenced as a good example of how YC startups have an unhealthy advantage on the forum, as YC startups can have their posts deleted but regular users such as BrandonM can not, hence their comments live for an eternity (which in this case seems to be a good thing).
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