How to Launch on Hacker News (Show HN): The Founder's Guide

A successful Show HN can be one of the highest-leverage launches available to a technical founder. The traffic is engaged, the feedback is direct, and the SEO value of a HN link is real. But Hacker News has a distinct culture and the community is unforgiving of marketing-speak, vague claims, or lack of technical substance.

Here is how to approach it correctly.

What Show HN Is

Show HN is a specific format on Hacker News for sharing things you have built. The convention is a title that starts with "Show HN:" followed by your product name and a brief description. Posts that follow this format appear in the dedicated Show HN feed and get a bit of extra goodwill from the community because they represent builders sharing work.

It is not a traditional product launch. There is no voting period, no countdown, no launch team. Your post rises or falls based on early engagement and community interest.

Before You Post

Have something real to show. Show HN is not for landing pages or waitlists. You need a working product, a demo, or a GitHub repo. If the link you share takes users to a coming-soon page, your post will be flagged or ignored.

Prepare your opening comment. The most important text on your post is not the title — it is the first comment you write immediately after submitting. This comment is where you explain what you built, why you built it, what is technically interesting about it, and what kind of feedback you want. Write this before you post and have it ready to paste.

Know your HN account standing. Brand-new accounts or accounts with no karma get less visibility. If you do not have a Hacker News account with some history, make one and participate in discussions for a few weeks before your launch.

The Post Title Format

Show HN: [Product Name] – [one-line description of what it does]

The description should be factual and specific. Examples of strong titles:

"Show HN: Mailbrew – a daily email digest from your favorite sources"
"Show HN: Datasette – an open source tool for exploring and publishing data"

Examples of weak titles:

"Show HN: The AI tool that changes everything about productivity"
"Show HN: We built something you need to check out"

The HN audience is technical. They want to understand immediately what the thing does, not be teased into clicking.

When to Post

Post between 9am and 11am Eastern Time on a weekday. Tuesday through Thursday tend to perform best. This window catches US-based HN readers at the start of their day when they are most likely to upvote and comment. Avoid Monday mornings (weekend backlog) and Friday afternoons (low engagement).

Do not schedule or automate. Be at your keyboard and ready to respond to comments within minutes of posting.

Writing Your Launch Comment

Your first comment should cover:

What problem you are solving and who it is for
What makes the technical approach interesting or non-obvious
How you built it (tech stack, architecture choices, anything a developer would find worth discussing)
What you are looking for — feedback on a specific feature, pricing questions, UX, anything specific

Keep it to four to eight paragraphs. Do not make it a marketing pitch. Write it the way you would explain your project to a senior developer you respect.

Handling the Comments

Respond to every comment, especially the critical ones. HN rewards founders who engage genuinely. If someone points out a flaw, acknowledge it. If someone asks a technical question, answer it thoroughly. If someone is wrong about something, correct them politely with specifics.

Do not get defensive. The HN community is blunt. Some comments will be harsh or dismissive. Responding defensively is the fastest way to tank the thread. Thank people for the feedback even when you disagree with it.

Flag genuine abuse but do not over-moderate. If a comment is genuinely offensive report it, but do not flag comments just because they are critical.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Posting during off-hours. A post that goes up at 2am ET on a Sunday may not get enough early traction to surface on the front page before it gets buried.

No opening comment. Posts without a founder comment in the first few minutes look abandoned and get less engagement.

Marketing language in the title or description. Words like "revolutionary," "game-changing," or "the future of" will get your post downvoted. HN readers are allergic to hype.

Only posting once and giving up. You are allowed to post again if your first attempt did not gain traction. Make sure you have improved the product or the framing meaningfully before reposting.

Realistic Expectations

A front-page Show HN can drive thousands of visitors in 24 hours. A mid-table post might send a few hundred. Even a post that does not go viral can generate useful feedback, a handful of paying customers, and a few links from blogs that aggregate HN content.

The feedback you get from HN is disproportionately technical and critical — use it to sharpen your product, not just to measure traction.

Also worth adding to your launch list: LaunchBuff — free listing + fortnightly founder tournament.