Hitting Hacker News’ front page can drive thousands of signups in hours. It can also tank your launch in equal measure if the comments turn on you. We’ve helped clients ship to HN — sometimes well, sometimes painfully.
The pattern between the launches that hit and the ones that flopped wasn’t product quality. It was preparation: how you frame the post, when you submit, who responds to comments in the first hour, and what’s already public on your site.
Here’s the pre-launch checklist we use.
// We do this for clients
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