How to launch on Hacker News: 8 tactics from a dev whose side project went viral
sahilypatel · x · 2026-10-10
A developer shares a field-tested playbook after his side project went viral on Hacker News for the first time:
- Timing: post Tuesday-Thursday, 8-11am ET; the author believes launching off-peak cost him traffic
- Format: "Show HN" for launches, "Ask HN" for validation
- Opening comment: write a short, non-sloppy first comment yourself
- First 24 hours: reply to every comment
- Remove friction: let people try, run, or test the product on launch day, even dropping signup walls temporarily
- Open source: not mandatory, but a strong positive signal on HN
- Study past hits: use bestofshowhn.com to analyze top launches; he even suggests feeding it to an LLM along with your product info to draft the post
- What to avoid: HN dislikes waitlists and newsletter captures
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