How to Write a Successful Show HN Post

The Show HN title formula

Your title is the single highest-leverage element. HN readers scan titles in a feed of 30+ new submissions per hour. Titles that work are 50-70 characters, name the specific technology or problem, and avoid marketing language.

Our Hacker News model's top positive signals include "open source," technical terms like "sqlite," "graphql," and "haskell," and phrases like "just released." These reflect what the HN community actually upvotes: concrete technical work, not product pitches.

• Format: "Show HN: [Product Name] - [one specific thing it does]"
• Keep titles between 50-70 characters for full visibility on mobile.
• Name the technology stack or problem domain explicitly.
• Avoid superlatives: "best," "fastest," "revolutionary" trigger skepticism.

First comment strategy

The first comment is your real pitch. HN culture expects the submitter to post a detailed comment explaining what they built, why, and what they learned. This comment matters more than the linked landing page.

Include a link to source code, documentation, or a technical blog post when possible. Our model weights "https docs" and "open source" as strong positive signals because they indicate genuine technical substance.

• Post your first comment within 60 seconds of submission.
• Explain the technical problem you solved and your approach.
• Share what you would do differently if starting over.
• Link to a demo, repo, or docs page. Avoid linking only to a marketing landing page.
• Disclose if you are the author. Transparency is expected and rewarded.

Technical authenticity vs. marketing speak

This is the single strongest predictor of Show HN success in our model. Posts written like product launch announcements fail. Posts written like technical blog posts succeed.

Words that correlate with high-traction posts: "open source," "filesystem," "ide," "lua," "nginx," "sqlite." Words that correlate with failure: "excited," "game-changer," "disrupt," "passionate." The pattern is clear: specificity beats enthusiasm.

• Write like you are explaining the project to a senior engineer at a coffee shop.
• Include technical tradeoffs you made and why.
• Show, do not tell: link to working code or a live demo.
• Skip the founder story unless it involves a genuine technical insight.

Timing: when to post

LaunchPact analyzed 979 launches and found Tuesday through Thursday, 9am-12pm EST, produce the highest median upvote counts. This aligns with when US-based developers are active and the HN front page has fewer competing submissions.

Avoid weekends, US holidays, and major tech news days (Apple events, large conference keynotes). Your post competes for attention with everything else on the front page.

First-hour velocity and the 90-minute window

HN ranking is heavily influenced by early upvote velocity. Posts that reach 15+ points in the first 90 minutes have a significantly higher chance of reaching the front page. After two hours, momentum rarely accelerates.

Do not ask for upvotes directly. HN moderators flag vote solicitation and it can get your post penalized. Instead, notify a small group of genuine users who would find the project interesting.

• Have 5-10 people ready to read and upvote organically if they find it genuinely useful.
• Monitor comments and respond quickly. Active discussion boosts ranking.
• If your post stalls at 3-5 points after 60 minutes, it is unlikely to recover.
• Prepare responses to predictable technical questions in advance.

Handling the week-after traffic spike

A successful Show HN post sends a traffic spike that lasts 24-48 hours, then drops sharply. Founders who treat this as a sustained acquisition channel are disappointed. Founders who treat it as a validation and email collection event do well.

Prepare your infrastructure before posting. A front-page HN post can send 10,000-50,000 visitors in a few hours. Server crashes during the spike waste the entire launch.

• Load-test your landing page and signup flow before posting.
• Have a simple email capture on the landing page. HN traffic rarely converts to paid immediately.
• Monitor error rates and response times in real time during the spike.
• Collect analytics on which HN comment threads drove the most engaged visitors.

What our model sees when scoring Show HN posts

The Launch Intel Hacker News model was trained on 150,764 posts with a balanced split: 47.2% high-traction, 52.8% low-traction. Average prediction probability is 49.4%. The model evaluates text features and evaluates only your title and description text.

It cannot see your GitHub stars, prior HN karma, or posting history. A first-time poster with a well-written technical description can score as high as a serial HN launcher.

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