How to launch on Hacker News with a Show HN post

To launch on Hacker News, post a Show HN: a link to something people can try right away, with a title that starts with "Show HN" and says plainly what it does. Then add a short comment about who you are and why you built it, and stay in the thread to answer every question.

That sounds simple, and it is. Most launches that fail on Hacker News fail on the rules, not on the product. The site has written rules for Show HN, and the community enforces them with flags. This guide goes through them in the order you meet them: what you post, how you title it, what you write first, and how you run the thread.

Check that your product counts as a Show HN

The Show HN page says it is for something you have made that other people can play with. Readers try it, give feedback and ask questions in the thread. The same page lists what is off topic: blog posts, sign-up pages, newsletters, lists and other reading material. Landing pages and fundraisers are out too.

Two more rules matter for a young SaaS. The page asks you to make it easy to try your thing without barriers such as signups or emails, because you get more feedback that way. And it says small updates like a new version number are usually not enough for a Show HN, while a major overhaul probably is. So if your product only opens behind a waitlist, it is not ready for this launch. Give visitors a demo account, a sample result or a free first use they can reach in one click.

The good news is in the same text: a Show HN does not need to look slick, and the community is comfortable with work at an early stage. You do not need a finished product. You need one that works when a stranger opens it.

Write a plain title

The title is most of your launch, because most readers see nothing else. It starts with "Show HN:" and then says what the product does. The site guidelines ask you not to make titles stand out with uppercase, exclamation points or claims about how great something is. They also ask you to crop a gratuitous number, so "10 ways to do X" becomes "Ways to do X".

Marc Lou, a solo founder who wrote up his Hacker News launches, suggests a personal framing: start the post with "I made" or "After 6 months coding", and make it clear what the reader gets by clicking. For a hypothetical scheduling tool for dentists, compare these two titles:

• Weak: Show HN: The best scheduling platform for modern dental clinics
• Better: Show HN: I made a booking page that fills dentist cancellations from a waitlist

The second one names the user, the problem and the result. It contains no adjectives that a reader has to take on trust.

Add the first comment yourself

A Show HN is a link post, and the FAQ says you cannot put a link inside a text submission; the advice there is to submit the link and then add a regular comment. Use that comment well. Say who you are, why you built the product, what is still rough, and what feedback you want. Write it yourself: the guidelines say don't put generated text in HN posts, and readers notice.

A good first comment for the dentist example is four or five sentences long. It names the problem you saw, for example empty chairs after late cancellations. It says what you tried before and what the tool does now. It ends with one specific question, such as whether clinics would let patients rebook by text.

Do not ask anyone to upvote

This is the rule that sinks the most launches. The Show HN page says don't ask friends to upvote or comment, and the FAQ is direct about the cost: the site will penalize or ban submissions, accounts and sites that break this rule. It also warns that readers detect vote requests, flag them and call them spam. Do not post the link in a group chat with a request, and do not send it to your newsletter with "please upvote".

Do not chase a second try by deleting the post either. The guidelines ask you to not delete and repost. The FAQ allows a small number of reposts if a story has not had significant attention in the last year or so; otherwise the site buries reposts as duplicates. If a launch gets no traction, improve the product and come back later with a real change.

Know how a Show HN reaches the front page

Every Show HN first appears on the new Show HN list. The Show HN page says that once a post clears a small points threshold, it appears on the show page in the top bar. From there, rank follows a simple rule with many exceptions. The FAQ says the basic algorithm divides points by a power of the time since a story was submitted, and that flags, anti-abuse software and moderators also change rank.

Two things follow. Early votes from real readers count for more than late ones, so post when you can stay at your desk for the next several hours. And flags can undo votes, so one rule broken in the thread can cost more than a weak title.

Run the thread like a conversation

The thread is where a launch turns into users. The Show HN page asks commenters to ask questions out of curiosity and not cross-examine, and the same tone works for you as the author. Answer every question, including the hard ones. When someone says the product is wrong, ask what they would do instead. Admit what does not work yet. Each answer is a public reply that the next reader sees.

Do not stop at your own thread, either. Hacker News also has Ask HN posts where people ask what tool to use for a problem. The official API returns up to 200 of the latest Ask HN and Show HN stories, so new questions come in all the time. If you answer the ones that match your product with a real answer and an honest mention, you reach readers who already have the problem. The same habit works on Reddit, where promoting a SaaS without getting banned depends on the same idea: help first, link second. LitePal finds threads like these on Reddit, Hacker News, X and Threads and drafts a reply for each; you read it, change it and post it from your own account.

What one good launch can bring

Results on Hacker News vary a lot, so treat any single number as one founder's story, not a forecast. Marc Lou writes that he got 25,000 visitors from 5 viral posts. That is 25,000 / 5 = 5,000 visitors a post on average. He also writes that one post brought 11,000 visitors and the first customers for his first startup. That single post is 11,000 / 25,000 = 44% of his total, so one launch did almost half of the work of five.

Those visitors are not customers yet. Marc Lou's own advice is to engage with the people who comment, because the thread is where a visitor turns into a conversation. Hacker News is also one channel among several, so plan the next ones too; this list of places to find your first SaaS customers covers the rest.

Checklist before you post

• A stranger can try the product in one click, with no waitlist or email gate
• The title starts with Show HN and says who it is for and what it does
• The title has no adjectives, uppercase or exclamation marks
• Your first comment is ready: who you are, why you built it, what is rough, one question
• You wrote the post and the comment yourself
• Nobody gets a request to upvote or comment
• You can stay in the thread for the next several hours
• You know which Ask HN questions your product answers

Before you launch, paste your site into LitePal to see the Hacker News and Reddit threads where people already ask for a product like yours, each with a reply drafted for you to edit and post.