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Upvote us, downvote us, ignore us – I don’t care I think this is a good attitude to have, but I have to point out that obviously it matters a little. Otherwise, this post wouldn't exist.
Left unsaid: how many of the 105,000 unique HN visitors are customers?
Also left unsaid (but harder to quantify): how many of those 105,000 HN visitors are influencers who have referred 37 Signal products to others? (FWIW, I know of at least half a dozen teams who've signed up for BaseCamp paid accounts as a result of my recommendation.)
[ UPDATE: In response to subsequent comments below, I've created a poll here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3680400 ]
> During that period, there were 24,826 first time visitors to any of our sites who we could identify as having first gotten to us via Hacker News (in all, we received more like 105,000 unique visitors from Hacker News, but many of those were repeat visitors). 97 of those visitors signed up, with more than 85% of them electing the free plan. Left unsaid: how many of the 105,000 unique HN visitors are customers? Also…
They should have just smiled at the naysayers and went on with their day. To post an entire article on the negativity of one community seems unfocused. My only question is: why? Disclosure: I'm a big fan of 37signals. This is kind of a surprise.
People need to realize that sources of content almost always come in waves here on HN -- when someone makes an erudite post that makes it to the front page, there are a lot of people who will watch that source looking to repeat that success. And then you'll get the voters who'll vote it up just because it's familiar, until it becomes too familiar when they'll vote it down for the same reason.
We've seen these come in waves over the years (I've used HN far longer than this account). Coding Horror, Daring Fireball, Marco.org, Scott Adams, Dustin Curtis, etc. A small amount of very good content, and then lots and lots and lots of turgid waste that makes the front page simply because the author once did.
They quoted the number of posts they made on their blog but they didn't address whether: 1) they submitted more of their own blog posts to HN or 2) changed the content of their blog posts to appeal to HN readers more. I think they probably did (which is fine with me).
When all is said and done, what’s our likely financial outcome from Hacker News visitors for those 25 posts? About $300 total per month.
A bit simplistic and conveniently short-sighted view if you ask me.
However, I can confirm with at least myself that the blog posts have given me confidence about their product that competitors don't have. In effect their posts have pushed me closer to using their product.
What i'm trying to get at, is that their posts are probably more effective at sales than they're giving themselves credit for. However it's hard to measure.