Hacker News Playbook for Founders: Show HN, Ask HN, and Customer Discovery

Hacker News is where technical founders and early adopters gather. It is not Reddit: threads move fast, norms are stricter, and substance beats hype. This playbook covers Show HN, Ask HN, and ongoing discovery - without treating HN as a billboard.

Read HN Guidelines before your first post. For Reddit tactics: Reddit playbook. For HN-specific landing: Hacker News customer discovery.

What HN is good for

HN is weaker for: consumer lifestyle products, heavy visual brands, and anything that needs long video before understanding the product.

Show HN: what still works in 2026

Show HN is the Hacker News format for sharing something you made. The submission title starts with Show HN:, and it lands on both the main "new" queue and the dedicated Show HN page. Done right, it is the closest thing HN has to a launch day.

The rules, in plain terms

HN publishes its own Show HN guidelines. The short version:

• It has to be something people can try. A working product, an open-source repo, a game, a library, a hardware project with a demo. If readers can't play with it, it isn't a Show HN.
• Reading material doesn't qualify. Blog posts, newsletters, lists, and sign-up pages go in as regular submissions, without the Show HN: prefix.
• No landing pages or fundraisers. A "join the waitlist" page is the most common way founders get their Show HN killed.
• Keep barriers low. Ideally people can try it without signing up or handing over an email. If an account is truly required, say so in your first comment and offer a demo login or a video.
• Minor updates don't count. A new feature on a product you've already shown is not a new Show HN. A major overhaul can be.
• It doesn't have to be a startup. Side projects and weekend hacks are welcome - "interesting" matters more than "fundable."

The general HN guidelines still apply: no asking for upvotes, no voting rings, no using HN mainly for promotion.

Writing the title

Format: Show HN: [Name] – [what it does, in plain words]

• Good: Show HN: Cronwatch – Open-source cron monitoring for Kubernetes
• Weak: Show HN: Cronwatch – We reimagined scheduling
• Weak: Show HN: The best way to monitor cron jobs

Say what it is, not how you feel about it. Skip superlatives, exclamation marks, and emoji. HN moderators edit titles that read like ads, and readers skip them anyway. If it's open source, self-hosted, or free, say so - those words earn clicks on HN.

Choosing the URL

Link to the thing people can try, not the thing that describes it:

If your homepage opens with a sales pitch and a waitlist form, make a stripped-down demo page for the launch instead.

The first comment (maker comment)

Post your own comment within a minute or two of submitting. This is where the real launch happens: most readers open the thread before they click the link.

A good maker comment covers:

1. Who you are - one line. "I'm the solo developer" is enough.
2. The problem - why you built it, in one or two sentences from your own experience.
3. What it does and how - the technical bit HN actually wants. Stack, architecture, the interesting tradeoff.
4. What's rough - known limitations, said plainly before someone else says them.
5. What you want feedback on - a specific question gets better replies than "thoughts?"
6. Pricing, if any - state it up front. Hidden pricing gets asked about, and not kindly.

The template further down gives you a starting structure.

Timing

There is no magic hour, but there are bad ones. Submissions get very little time on the "new" page to collect early votes, so you want readers online and yourself free for the next several hours.

Check recent activity by hour (UTC) with the free Best Time to Post on Hacker News tool, then pick a slot when you can sit in the thread. Posting at a "perfect" time and then going to sleep is worse than posting at an average time and answering every comment.

Handling the thread

• Reply to everything substantive, especially the critical comments. A calm, specific answer to a harsh comment often does more for you than ten compliments.
• Concede real points. "You're right, that's a gap - here's why we cut it for v1" lands well. Arguing doesn't.
• Give numbers and details when people ask how something works. Vague answers read as marketing.
• Don't ask friends or coworkers to upvote or comment. HN detects voting rings, and it can sink the post or your account.
• Write down every feature request and objection. That list is the most valuable output of the day.

If it flops

Most Show HNs get a handful of points and drop off the new page. That's normal and not a verdict on your product.

• Don't delete and repost the same submission. HN treats that as gaming the system.
• HN allows a small number of reposts for stories that didn't get significant attention, and moderators sometimes move promising posts into a "second-chance pool" that gives them another shot at the front page. If you think yours was missed, you can email the moderators at hn@ycombinator.com and ask - politely, once.
• Better next step: ship something meaningfully new, then come back with a Show HN about that.

Pre-submit checklist

• People can try it in under a minute, ideally without signing up
• Title follows Show HN: Name – what it does with no hype words
• Link goes to the product, repo, or demo - not a waitlist or blog post
• Maker comment is drafted: problem, how it works, limitations, a specific question
• Pricing is stated (or "free / open source")
• The site holds up under a traffic spike (static pages cached, rate limits sane)
• You've blocked 4+ hours to stay in the thread
• Analytics or a "how did you hear about us" field is ready to measure sign-ups
• Nobody has been asked to upvote

Common failures:

• Waitlist or landing page with nothing to try
• Founders who post and disappear
• Marketing speak in the title or first comment
• Asking friends to upvote (against HN rules)
• Re-posting the same launch every week

Ask HN: your best discovery surface

Ask HN posts often start with "How do you…?" or "What do you use for…?" Those threads are natural discovery for B2B and dev tools:

• Search HN for your category (observability, CI, note-taking, billing)
• Read top-level comments for phrases to reuse on your site
• Note alternatives people compare - you are learning positioning, not closing in-thread

Comment-first discovery: Before you post Ask HN, spend two weeks leaving useful replies on existing threads. HN accounts with zero history promoting a product get flagged.

Show HN vs Ask HN (decision tree)

Do you have a working demo or OSS repo?
├─ No → Ask HN for workflow research OR keep building
└─ Yes → Is this your first public launch?
    ├─ Yes → Can people try it without a waitlist?
    │   ├─ No → Fix that first (demo login, free tier, video)
    │   └─ Yes → Show HN (block 4+ hours for comments)
    └─ No → Is the update a major overhaul?
        ├─ Yes → Show HN with honest "what changed"
        └─ No → Comment on relevant threads instead

Timing and cadence

Posting when the front page is active helps visibility. Use the free Best Time to Post on Hacker News tool to review recent activity by hour (UTC) and trending keywords - then pick a window that fits your timezone and team availability.

Practical note: Tuesday–Thursday mornings US time often see high traffic, but your comment quality matters more than the perfect hour.

Engagement templates (adapt, do not spam)

Helpful comment on an Ask HN thread

We hit this when [specific context]. Two things that helped:

1. [Concrete tip]
2. [Concrete tip]

Happy to share how we approached [narrow sub-problem] if useful.

Show HN first comment (maker comment)

Hi HN - I'm [name], and I built [product] [solo / with a small team].

I kept running into [specific problem from your own work].
[Product] does [one sentence on what it does].

How it works: [stack, architecture, the interesting tradeoff].

What's rough: [honest list of limitations].

Pricing: [free / open source / $X per month, free tier covers Y].

I'd especially like feedback on [one specific question].

Disclose affiliation. Answer technical questions with specifics - benchmarks, architecture tradeoffs, pricing logic.

Turn HN into a weekly workflow

When manual search becomes repetitive, run the same queries across HN and Reddit in one pass - Needle Search includes Hacker News on eligible plans. Free Trending Problems shows category-wide momentum without an account.

Metrics that matter

Upvotes alone are vanity - a front page with zero signups usually means positioning or onboarding failed, not "bad luck."

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HN best-time tool · Needle pricing