Ask HN: Did any Show HN posts turn into successful startups? - <AUTHOR> <comment><USER2> I've actually had the exact opposite happen: my ShowHN posts got nowhere, but the product itself became successful. I'm sure that the opposite is also true as well, but figured folks needed to hear that, just because your ShowHN post got nowhere, doesn't mean there's not a market fit for what you're building. It just might not be interesting enough for the HN crowd, or you don't have any name-recognition.

For those who are curious the product is browserless.io. Rev chart is here: [https://www.indiehackers.com/product/browserless/revenue](https://www.indiehackers.com/product/browserless/revenue)

EDIT: here's my ShowHN post for posterity: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15722617](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15722617)

<comment><USER3> It could be the way it's presented too. What does "headless Chrome as a service" even mean?

When I look at the Github link, I actually understand what it does: "Severless Chrome on your own infrastructure. Each session gets its own clean Chrome context for total isolation. After the session is complete Chrome is shutdown. You can also think of it like a database connection where your app connects to browserless, runs some work, and gets results back."

But it's fair. Titles are hard and HN shuns clickbait.

<comment><USER4> Also you didn't respond to the person who did leave a comment. Tough to have a post take off that way.

<comment><USER2> Hrm, it must have slipped past me, I'll take a look!

EDIT: yeah, this is my bad. Totally missed it and it's a great comment too :(

<comment><USER4> it's not all bad, you still can :)

<comment><USER2> Appears it's locked now? Can't seem to reply :(

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Dropbox: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863)

<comment><USER6> The first comment on that thread is a typical funny HN comment: "if you're a Linux user and do x, y, z and connect the flux capacitor to the warp drive you can emulate Dropbox no problem"

<comment><USER7> True, though it's definitely nice to see how that discussion didn't descend into poo-flinging. The poster replied to the criticism and the critic conceded that it would indeed be useful, even for linux users :-)

<comment><USER8> Sadly, 10 years later, they didn't respond to criticism about removing support for non-ext4-yet-xattr-enabled filesystems.

<comment><USER9> I'm leaving because of this. And I give them the ~$100/year for the pro plan. Screw 'em.

Also it really shits me that every time I log in I get a little banner that says "Almost out of space? Try Dropbox Business!".

One, no, I am not almost out of space. I'm at 15% and if you don't know that, there's something terribly wrong.

Two, I'm not a business. I'm just me. And I already pay for Pro. Get out of my goddamned face.

/rant

<comment><USER10> Not one to support rants normally but this irritates me too, especially when encountered in billion-dollar businesses (not only Dropbox). It's like they can't afford investing a part-time developer and a few extra db queries in customer experience and retention, which indicates that they are in it for the fast buck, right or wrong. This type of customer indifference should have a special, and tarnishing, name.

<comment> 52-6F-62 I think it's more a problem with most companies of any size.

It's not the devs. The owners likely become sufficiently detached from the end product and experience and sales/marketing teams are left to squeeze every bit of fiscal value from the thing. That usually results in battles for new analytics or new features that usually look like background software/network bloat, and judging the client to increase their spend no matter what. Those teams always have to post higher numbers regardless of the market.

Not that I disagree.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Apr 4, 2011 "Show HN: my weekend project, Gumroad" [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2406614](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2406614)

May 7, 2012 "Gumroad raises $7 million from KPCB" [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3939871](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3939871)

<comment><USER12> Funny to see the $0.70 Bitcoin reference and debate as to whether it would gain traction:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2407053](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2407053)

Hacker News referencing Bitcoin in April, 2011

<comment><USER13> From what I can tell, the first HN post referencing Bitcoin is this one from February 3, 2009, about a month after its initial release: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=463793](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=463793)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Depends on how you'd define success. My older brother did a Show HN for his startup, NanaGram, about four months ago [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17016374](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17016374)

The product's now delivering family photos in the mail for hundreds of grandparents every month. They might not be making millions of dollars yet, but they are making some money and doing lots of good in the world by helping with elder loneliness. That's a success to me.

<comment><USER15> That is a great idea that not only makes you cash--at a very fair price--but also helps people connect in a genuine fashion.

<comment><USER16> Thanks. I'm pushing on lowering the price. So many people are out there making minimum wage. Their grandparents deserve photos too.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> We're Retool ([https://tryretool.com](https://tryretool.com)). We're not successful startup yet. But we're definitely a startup, haha.

We did a Show HN a year ago: ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14515494](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14515494)). Then we did YC, raised a bit of money (almost entirely off our HN traction), and launched around a few weeks ago ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17725966](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17725966)). Now we're profitable!

<comment><USER18> I'm actually very psyched to use retool in my startup. We're not there yet but soon!

<comment><USER17> Thanks! Feel free to ping me: email@example.com anytime once you start! I'd love to help out :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Contentful ([https://www.contentful.com](https://www.contentful.com)) was originally a Show HN called StorageRoom: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2616041](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2616041)

It's now a series C startup with over 200 employees and customers like Spotify, WeWork, Samsung, Nike, Jack in the Box, The British Museum

(I work there)

<comment><USER20> PM: search for "reSpository" snafu on your home page

<comment><USER19> Thank you! Fixed that :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I announced Candy Japan here, and have made a modest living off of it for the past ~7 years.

<comment><USER22> I loved your service! I'd still be subscribed if I hadn't gotten diabetes and had to cut all candy out of my life.

<comment><USER23> _I loved your service! I 'd still be subscribed if I hadn't gotten diabetes_

Boy, _there 's_ a ringing endorsement! :-)

<comment><USER22> Ahahaha, I didn't realize it would come out that way. Rest assured the diabetes is genetic, and not from the consumption of delicious Japanese candy.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> DuckDuckGo: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=315142](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=315142)

<comment><USER25> LOL, all the people saying the the name is horrible.

<comment><USER26> Or the design. But who can blame them: [https://web.archive.org/web/20080926132853/http://duckduckgo...](https://web.archive.org/web/20080926132853/http://duckduckgo.com:80/)

<comment><USER25> The design has improved significantly over the years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Graphene: [https://graphene-python.org](https://graphene-python.org) \- HN link: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10976794](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10976794)

I started working on it almost 3 years ago. Now about 5.000 companies all over the globe are using it including Yelp, Reddit & Mozilla.

We're profitable and trying to expand our niche (GraphQL in Python) to more markets. Thinking on applying to YC in not a very far future :)

<comment><USER28> I'm interested in how Quiver is going? It looks like this is your main revenue stream? I've looked at it before and been unsure what it does, and trying it now it doesn't seem to work for us (no requests ever reach quiver with the GraphQLQuiverCloudBackend). Is it production ready, or is it in preview at the moment?

Edit: so the issue was that we had an extraneous trailing comma, which was turning a string (deprecation reason) into a 1-element tuple, which was then failing an assertion in the AST serialisation within graphql-core, however this assertion was being silenced by one of the backends - either the decider or the Quiver backend.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> The results aren't as exciting as some, but Cycling Analytics pays my bills

[https://www.cyclinganalytics.com/](https://www.cyclinganalytics.com/)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4453967](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4453967)

</comment><comment><USER30> GitLab: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4428278](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4428278)

<comment><USER31> They just raised $100M at $1.1B valuation.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> 5 years ago I asked a question here - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6828102](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6828102)

That lead to [https://unicodepowersymbol.com/](https://unicodepowersymbol.com/)

Not a start-up, but a successful project :-)

<comment><USER33> The unicode power symbol looks like someone's giving you the finger. Nice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Segment.com (formerly Segment.io) - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4912076](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4912076)

</comment><comment> martin-adams I've been following Nathan Barry with ConvertKit. Not all Show HN gets traction: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8583911](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8583911)

But that doesn't mean you wont still be successful: [https://convertkit.baremetrics.com/](https://convertkit.baremetrics.com/)

<comment><USER35> This one is incredible.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> I announced the creation of a class here on HN ( [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5862102](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5862102) \-- This was a Show HN, but then it was edited for some reason; link is dead now, but it was a blog post describing the class and had a payment link), which went on to sell out in the first day, then eventually I posted on HN that I wanted to sell it ( [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14933206](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14933206) ), and was acquired because of the post.

</comment><comment><USER37> PagerDuty - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=758653](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=758653). Valued at $1.3B this month.

</comment><comment><USER38> My project didn't get much attention on Show HN (or anywhere else), but I sent a cold email to Mark Cuban and offered to invest pretty quickly. So don't get too disheartened if your project gets a tepid response.

Orignal post: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14459876](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14459876)

<comment><USER39> Looks cool, and I love the idea of cold emailing Cuban. How's the progress?

<comment><USER38> That app in particular got sidelined for now, but we've released two others since then:

[http://instasaber.com](http://instasaber.com) [http://speakingpuppy.com](http://speakingpuppy.com)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Producthunt is a spin off from Show HN. [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7144815](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7144815)

</comment><comment><USER41> We started BitGym nearly 6 years ago([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4519256](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4519256)) and had pretty low traction on here,

By most definitions we've pivoted from tech startup to "profitable small tech business", staying at 4-6 people. We're no dropbox, but at a solid cohort paying customers for our reasonably well-loved consumer product we've turned into a successful (by our personal definitions) company, if not a successful startup.

</comment><comment><USER42> Show HN traffic can definitely have an impact but I'd also urge keeping in mind the causation vs correlation fallacy.

Also the Show HN posts are not as organic as they appear, in other words I don't believe you just prepend Show HN to a post and see it go boom...they won't admit it but there is more happening behind the scene.

<comment><USER43> Can you clarify what you meant with "happening behind the scene"? Who are "they" that you are referring to? Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Definitely Webflow: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5407499](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5407499)

Great company, great founders, great product.

</comment><comment><USER45> Almost 4.5 years ago we launched Instabug (www.instabug.com) on HN ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5526949](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5526949))

Successful is a broad term, but we have tens of thousands of apps on our platform and our SDK is running on over a billion devices. We did YC and raised multiple rounds after.

</comment><comment><USER46> I think this was the company that became pebble (correct me if I'm wrong).

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2221579](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2221579)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3290884](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3290884)

<comment><USER47> Yup [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_(watch)#Funding](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pebble_\(watch\)#Funding)

</comment></comment><comment><USER48> I'm curious to see how insomnia is doing as a non-traditional startup in that he didn't "grow" the company (as far as I know). It's one of the best applications we use in our day-to-day workflow.

<comment><USER49> I've switched to Insomnia from Postman some time ago, out of frustration, and though I don't use it heavily (a few minutes every week) I really like Insomnia. There are a number of design decisions in the app that I really appreciate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> Not a successful startup but a successful product. I launched [https://www.ghostnoteapp.com](https://www.ghostnoteapp.com) in 2015 and it's going really well. Releasing a new version 2.0 and expanding with chrome extensions to allow you to annotate even more specific items.

Thanks to HN it became a pretty good success. The original Show HN is here [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9145007](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9145007)

<comment><USER25> >Not a successful startup but a successful product.

What does that mean exactly? Lots of downloads/customers but not enough to be profitable (or not profitable enough to where it was worth the time and energy)?

Or is it profitable, but you just don't view your single product as a "start- up", because maybe it is a one-man-show, and not something you do full time?

<comment><USER50> The latter. It's profitable but I don't consider it a startup as it's "just a product" perhaps at one point when I have expanded the product line enough I would consider it a startup but for now it's just a nice relatively profitable product.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> I saw this post more than eight years ago and commented on it: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1261786](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1261786)

I then started helping Anton out and we managed to hit the front page a few more times: [https://hn.algolia.com/?query=akshell&sort=byDate&prefix&pag...](https://hn.algolia.com/?query=akshell&sort=byDate&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=story)

To get feedback on the platform, we paid developers to use it to make apps for our clients, which brought in some revenue. However, we failed to get people to pay for the service itself, even though we had a couple of thousand developers signed up and a few hundred apps in production. So we put Akshell on hold, but stayed in touch.

Three years ago, we reconnected and started Toughbyte: [https://toughbyte.com](https://toughbyte.com). We initially focused on the thing that worked at Akshell, i.e. writing software for clients. Almost by accident, in the end we ended up doing tech recruitment instead. More on that here: [https://blog.toughbyte.com/whats-next-for-toughbyte- aed3cf54...](https://blog.toughbyte.com/whats-next-for-toughbyte-aed3cf54c085)

Now we're building a tech recruitment platform. We've been profitable since day one and have been growing 50% each year. So, in a somewhat roundabout way, that first Show HN post did result in a startup that's still around.

</comment><comment><USER52> We started AirPaper ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10320509](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10320509)) off a show HN, but ultimately started a company Apollo Agriculture ([https://apolloagriculture.com](https://apolloagriculture.com)) that's three years in now, growing, and helping thousands of families get out of poverty in Subsaharan Africa.

</comment><comment><USER53> Sysdig - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7524144](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7524144)

Raised 68M last week, 100+ total overall - [https://sysdig.com/press- releases/sysdig-closes-series-d-fun...](https://sysdig.com/press- releases/sysdig-closes-series-d-funding/)

</comment><comment><USER54> I announced BugMuncher here (since been renamed to Saber Feedback - [https://www.saberfeedback.com](https://www.saberfeedback.com)), not sure if it counts as a _successful startup_ , but it's been profitably paying my wages for a couple of years :)

<comment><USER55> That sounds successful to me! Congrats!

<comment><USER54> Thanks! I'm not aiming for explosive growth or a huge exit, so it's probably more of a 'life-style business' rather than a startup, but that suits me just fine :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER56> Tinfoil started as a Show HN back in 2011: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2291944](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2291944)

Successful is a broad term, but we're still kickin' and growing fast. :)

</comment><comment><USER57> Depends on what "successful" is, but these guys keep crunching out really good software -

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8027405](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8027405)

</comment><comment><USER58> Not sure if "successful", but [https://newbusinessmonitor.co.uk/](https://newbusinessmonitor.co.uk/) makes me some pocket money — not nothing; half-way to "Ramen Profitable" — and was also accepted into the Advisory Track of this year's YCombinator Startup School which I'm quite proud of. I did a Show HN in May last year, and _I can 't believe_ how ugly and crappy the service was back then in comparison with how it is now.

This reminds me that I should document the history of projects I work on.

<comment><USER59> Is there a US version of this? Cool service!

<comment><USER58> Not as far as I'm aware, but people have started asking for the same thing for US and Australian companies. I _might_ end up expanding NBM to include other countries, provided I can reliably source the data.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> Hasura - [https://github.com/hasura/graphql- engine](https://github.com/hasura/graphql-engine) Show HN: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17540263](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17540263)

We'd been building the tech (realtime GraphQL on Postgres) for a while, but the HN launch gave us the initial visibility and a tremendous number of users, reviews. And within the last few weeks we have several users in production and enterprise clients too. :)

</comment><comment><USER61> Indiehackers.com started here and was acquired by Stripe

<comment><USER62> Best of examples here. You have been done a great work compiling information from others

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> Hashnode - a community for developers - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11018763](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11018763)

<comment><USER64> Somehow I was unaware of Hashnode. Just checked it out, and it's really neat! It's a lot like dev.to or Coderwall, but seems to be more like a traditional social network than those two, in terms of people hanging out and posting memes and stuff.

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> My time tracking app[1] was bootstrapped with over $15k in sales from Show HN[2]. Without a launch like this, it would be much harder to work on it in the first year when organic sales were low.

[1]: [https://qotoqot.com/qbserve/](https://qotoqot.com/qbserve/)

[2]: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11778077](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11778077)

</comment><comment><USER66> Mastodon : [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13303346](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13303346)

</comment><comment><USER67> Yes. I did a Show HN for [https://geocode.xyz](https://geocode.xyz) about a year ago, revenue is up over 1000% YTY - although there could also be other factors at play. HN is where I got the best criticism though. The key to success is being able to know where you suck early on.

</comment><comment><USER68> Dec 31, 2012 "Show HN: my weekend project, CameraLends" [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4987929](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4987929) (7 upvotes)

Aug 5, 2013 "I launched my weekend project 7 months ago on HN – here's CameraLends today" (124 upvotes)

Jan 10, 2017 "KitSplit Acquires CameraLends Becoming Biggest Online Camera Rental Company" [https://www.forbes.com/sites/nataliesportelli/2017/01/10/kit...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/nataliesportelli/2017/01/10/kitsplit- acquires-cameralends-to-become-biggest-online-camera-rental- company/#61065b3f4d5d)

<comment><USER69> What prompted you to do the Aug 5th 2013 update?

<comment><USER68> Seemed like a lot of progress from my initial MVP, and because the initial Show HN didn't get a lot of attention.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> Yes! We launched BuzzSumo 5 years ago almost to the day: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6437712](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6437712) and we were acquired by Brandwatch last year.

</comment><comment><USER71> Can't find the thread, but Segment started after the ShowHN post got a great response.

<comment><USER72> Mentioned elsewhere in this thread, but here's the link [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4912076](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4912076)

</comment></comment><comment><USER73> I did a Show HN for my React book two years ago [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13170837](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13170837) Since then I transitioned from being employed at a startup to being self- employed where I split my time doing 50% consulting work (which is passively generated through my blog) and the other 50% for educational platform/books [https://roadtoreact.com](https://roadtoreact.com) Hacker News gave me one of the initial feedbacks which made me follow this passion :)

</comment><comment><USER74> We ([https://github.com/amark/gun](https://github.com/amark/gun) / [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7587814](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7587814)) raised $2.6M for our "Open Source P2P Firebase" and now have Internet Archive ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17685682](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17685682)) and others doing terabyte / daily traffic on us. All started here on HN! :)

</comment><comment><USER75> ServerPilot ([https://serverpilot.io/](https://serverpilot.io/)) --- Show HN: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6733631](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6733631)

Our Show HN post didn't get much attention, but we also didn't have our marketing hopes set on that. We did turn into a successful startup, not in terms of raising money but instead in terms of growing off of revenue.

</comment><comment><USER76> Nov 14, 2014 - [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8653575](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8653575)

Not much traction on our Shown HN post, but we've had a lot of growth through our standup bots in Slack and Microsoft Teams. Still very much a startup, but we've re-branded to [https://jell.com](https://jell.com), have 4 employees, and a growing customer list!

</comment><comment><USER77> I did a Show HN on my side project, AutoMicroFarm, two years ago (although I have been working on it and posting to HN about it much longer than that).

Thanks to HN, I was able to get into the YC fellowship program. After launching and not getting any traction, I almost quit. However, I realized I did not know how to do marketing, sales, or customer dev (the "people want" part of "Make something people want"). It wouldn't be fair to the idea of AutoMicroFarm, or to myself, to quit without trying to learn marketing/sales/customer dev and applying it to AutoMicroFarm.

So this year, I hired a business coach ([https://solacelessons.com/](https://solacelessons.com/)) and continued working on AutoMicroFarm. I can't claim it's successful in any meaning of the word yet, but I have a solid framework in place for my social media/email/blog outreach, I am talking to people to figure out what they want, and starting to make revenue--all while having a day job, a side gig (both related to web dev), and a family. I've been really happy to make this progress while keeping the hours spent on AutoMicroFarm to 5-10 hours per week.

<comment><USER78> No offense, but your website is just as ugly as your business coaches _pink shadow on dark blue text is just... like really? I 'm getting nausea just looking at your coaches site_

There are so many great wordpress themes and premade static page templates you could use, why are the fonts on your site so terrible? The vertical spacing and kerning make my eyes bleed, especially on the FAQ.

Are you sure your business coach actually knows what they are doing? Even the font on your logo is terrible too _Federant, serif...?_ , the font is extremely dispropionate to the logo. There is simply too much crap going on in your logo as well, the roots are distracting and don't scale well for small image sizes. Doesn't YC fellowship recommend business coaches already as part of their program?

Maybe design isn't your thing, but you should seriously consider paying a professional to redo your entire branding and website. Its hard to have a social media / email / blog outreach strategy when these essential requirements aren't met yet. Its a oneclick install in many instances, adding a few images, and some text and that's it

I don't know how long you've had your business coach either, or what things she has outlined and actionable steps moving forward. Nor do I know what things you have gained since then. So I don't really know either way. But if website / logo redesign wasn't one of the lowest hanging fruits / highest priorities on that list then I question the coaches' effectiveness. Its cheap, fast, and easy to get a nice site done these days with existing templates.

 _Also, why do I get the feeling this comment 's intention is just to solicit traffic to your coaches site. Well for one, why does she already know about this comment on hackernews?_

<comment><USER77> Thanks for the feedback. I am starting to redo the website, I haven't updated the design for a while.

However, your comment comes across as really mean and unnecessary. I really doubt someone would come across it and think, "I really like the concept and would even be willing to pay for the products and/or services, but the logo font is Federant serif, and the FAQ spacing and kerning literally made my eyes bleed, so I can't see anything now."

Your reply to my coach is much more constructive and actionable. Please refrain from making comments like the one I am replying to, and strive to keep your comments constructive and actionable.

Have a great day.

<comment><USER78> Fair enough, I am sorry I offended you. You are right that comment was unnecessary and uncalled for. Design is a very particularly touchy subject to me. Sometimes I get in the heat of the moment and write down all my thoughts down unfiltered. I feel very strongly about every piece of information presented to me, and I feel even more strongly about lost potential

If you want constructive critcism, I suggest adjusting your line-height properties and font-family to something like Arial or roboto. If you want a quickfix, just add these 3 lines in your `body` tag [https://i.imgur.com/33lI25Z.png](https://i.imgur.com/33lI25Z.png)

Without changes [https://i.imgur.com/91Pv9Sh.png](https://i.imgur.com/91Pv9Sh.png), with changes [https://i.imgur.com/nA7JYub.png](https://i.imgur.com/nA7JYub.png)

For your font-logo I suggest simplifying it and removing some of the finer details. This is a quickdraft I made following the same guidelines that your logo emphasizes. Remove 2 fish, and just focus on one fish with bubbles to emphasize a complete cycle. [https://i.imgur.com/fSWf2fJ.png](https://i.imgur.com/fSWf2fJ.png)

<comment><USER77> Thank you so much for your apology, change of tone, and helpful hints! <3

Do you have any suggestions about which font to pick? I like Federant because it seems rustic/"farmy" yet modern at the same time.

As far as the logo itself, I meant to play around with making it a responsive SVG ([https://tympanus.net/codrops/2014/08/19/making-svgs- responsi...](https://tympanus.net/codrops/2014/08/19/making-svgs-responsive- with-css/)), but it would take me quite some time to climb the learning curve to do so. Unfortunately, the designer who made it for me did not provide an SVG file.

Again, thanks for your help!

<comment><USER78> I wouldn't worry about SVGs. The vast majority of logos are usually made in adobe illustrator / affinitydesigner/similar in vector .eps/.ai format.

When it gets exported its almost always a .png file. The logo you have doesn't benefit from SVG. The only ones that really benefit from it are things like gitlab's animated logo [https://i.imgur.com/FuxVepX.gif](https://i.imgur.com/FuxVepX.gif). SVG tends to overcomplex things, sometimes designers circumvent it using embedded font- families instead. [https://fontawesome.com/icons?d=gallery](https://fontawesome.com/icons?d=gallery)

Serif definitely is in the right ballpark for font families you are looking for. I really like the artofmanliness when it comes to older styles. [https://www.artofmanliness.com/](https://www.artofmanliness.com/). They use "BLACK" found here I believe. [http://www.fontspace.com/category/rustic](http://www.fontspace.com/category/rustic). Other farmy rustic styles [http://www.fontspace.com/category/rustic?p=3](http://www.fontspace.com/category/rustic?p=3) → Altantida

I tend to think of "barber shop fonts" when I think of old rustic "farmy" feel, because farmers would cut their own hair. And barbershops are still one of the few places that still use old traditions of knife shaving. Other good examples would be "speakeasy" bars, cowboy style.

The font you have is more castle/medieval/serfdom font instead of old farmy rustic. Technically, its not actually a bad font though for what you are going for, actually I looked through it is one of the better options. The logos font height needs to be the same size as the logos height though. Example [https://i.imgur.com/NEMKnhT.png](https://i.imgur.com/NEMKnhT.png) . Change the size font-size here to 2.5rem. [https://i.imgur.com/KJGAlxe.png](https://i.imgur.com/KJGAlxe.png)

I wouldn't suggest using federant for your actual paragraph text tags though. Keep that part simple and use Arial or Google Roboto

Hope this helps out

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER79> NomadList ? [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8107222](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8107222)

</comment><comment><USER80> Winfify, the company which made the successful A/B testing SaaS product Visual Website Optimizer(VWO) is bootstrapped and successful with $18 millions in revenue.

Their first submission was in 2010: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=876141](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=876141)

<comment><USER81> Thanks for the mention. The name of the company is Wingify.

Here's the Ask HN for Visual Website Optimizer that got 0 comments: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=991252](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=991252)

This product has gone to help Wingify bootstrap to $20mn in annual recurring revenue. So there's hope even if an 'Ask HN' doesn't fly :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER82> Checkr

Started 4 years ago[0] and raised $100m 5 months ago[1]

[0] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7937476](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7937476)

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16820699](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16820699)

<comment><USER35> I'm getting a DNS error on [https://checkr.io/](https://checkr.io/).

Just me?

<comment><USER83> I am as well.

*edit: Looks like it's at [https://checkr.com](https://checkr.com)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER84> Not sure what the underlying intent is with this question, but great question and love reading the answers.. Also, I always thought that the main purpose of the "Show HN" posts weren't about some big user generating promotion, but rather to solicit feedback from friendly fellow entrepreneurs and business people.?

</comment><comment><USER85> We posted our side project as Show HN almost 4 years ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7095228](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7095228)

As of Monday, both co-founders are working on it full time as a fully bootstrapped business.

</comment><comment><USER86> Posted a Show HN about 6 years ago. On the front page for about half a day. We hold our cards close to our chest because ours is a competitive industry, so pardon the anonymity, but we are bootstrapped and did $10m+ in revenue last year with a healthy profit. Much love, HN :)

</comment><comment><USER87> I remember at least one (Stripe)

</comment><comment><USER88> Segment [https://blog.ycombinator.com/peter-reinhardt-on-finding- prod...](https://blog.ycombinator.com/peter-reinhardt-on-finding-product- market-fit-at-segment/)

</comment><comment><USER89> I would imagine that every successful/not-successful startup would post on Show HN. There are entire lists of places to post stuff, and I'm sure Show HN must be in the top 10.

</comment><comment><USER90> Close.io: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5135295](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5135295)

</comment><comment><USER91> Don't have the link handy, but Gitlab is one.

</comment><comment><USER92> One blog post on my own crappy blog - turned into ~$1M so far.

</comment><comment><USER93> Dropbox did.

</comment><comment><USER94> Always interesting to read comments about the product after 10 years and it`s success :)

</comment><comment><USER95> Did Balsamiq start as a Show HN?</comment>


I can't stand the Free Software Foundation - <AUTHOR> https://enigmastation.com/articles/why-i-cant-stand-the-fsf/ <comment><USER2> Utter claptrap.

1\. I cannot imagine why anyone would think that the _Free_ Software Foundation would ever sign anything to assist in the production of proprietary software. Signing an affidavit always exposes one to risk; why would they assume risk to assist a software hoarder?

2\. The GNU/Linux thing has been argued and argued and while I once fell in the author's camp I now realise that the FSF had it right all along. It was when I heard someone refer to Cygwin or macOS as 'Linux' that I understood that people really do confuse the GNU operating system with the Linux kernel. Since then, I have tried to be careful to refer to it as GNU/Linux.

3\. The GPL does a better job of achieving the FSF's goals than the LGPL; it is appropriate for the FSF to recommend it.

Who is this JOTTINGE guy?

</comment><comment><USER3> Perhaps RMS could have handed it better, but it is difficult to know from a second hand anecdote. Anyway, I would be very nervous to sign whatever paperwork IBM want me to sign. If MS sues IBM, then after signing this can MS sue me? If MS sues IBM, will the lawyer team of IBM help me or sue me?</comment>


Python Code Analysis Tools–An Overview - <AUTHOR> http://blog.quantifiedcode.com/python-code-analysis-tools-overview/

<comment><USER2> A nice summary list. With one tiny page style quibble, in the summary table I can't tell, without a lot of cross reference, whether an X-mark or a Check- mark is the "has this feature" indicator, ((it's the Check-mark)). Probably it would be better just to leave the X-marked column blank.

<comment><AUTHOR> Fair point. Hope it is better now.

<comment><USER2> much. thankee.</comment></comment></comment>


Object Tracking Algorithm Learns From Mistakes [video] - <AUTHOR> http://www.tested.com/news/object-tracking-algorithm-learns-from-mistakes-video/2109/ <comment><USER2> This is hands down the best kinect demo I have seen yet.

I just hope that these sorts of technologies are open sourced and not only for use with heavy license fees and to "The Man".

Weapons tracking for specifically intended targets - like we saw in RoboCops friend/foe identification, and in the terminator... The applications of such systems will surely be sued for both security and death.

Combine this with the other recognition technologies that are out there, and all ninjas are now obsolete.</comment>


How To Judge a Hackathon – Finding the Chosen One - <AUTHOR> http://mlh.io/blog/how-to-judge-a-hackathon-finding-the-chosen-one-05-15-2014/

<comment><USER2> Having experienced all three types of judging formats as a hacker, I honestly enjoyed the Demo-athon types the best.

The most exciting part of a hackathon is seeing what other hackers have made and that's almost impossible when you're stuck at your table demoing. Especially if you're a solo hacker or a key member of the team.

The expo-style format may be the most scalable, but there's also a ton of room for improvement. I distinctly remember a hackathon (MHacks maybe?) where none of the sponsor judges came to see my app. Another time I overheard judges prioritized tables that had the most twitter mentions, turning the expo into a social network popularity contest of sorts.

Its exciting to see hackathons trying to solve the demo problem, and I'm really glad someone put together a guide, but I think the ideal judging format has yet to be found.

</comment><comment><USER3> From my perspective, the "conversation > pitch" line is key. I love walking around, talking to people, and watching in awe as they excitedly demo their hacks. But it's pretty irritating when everyone tries to sell eachother their apps.

For that reason, I'm a fan of the science fair-style expo. It has less incentive for self-aggrandizement compared to onstage presentations. Hackers can be more genuine/playful without that single, high-tension Demo-athon pitch.

But then again, I have no idea how difficult science fair-style events are to coordinate. I've never organized a hackathon.

<comment><USER4> The problem with exhibition style is that the judges and the participants end up completely exhausted because they're presenting/pitching a few hundred times at the larger events... and some people just can't take a hint that it's time to move on to the next table or something like that. At least that's what I've experienced.

And from a judging perspective it's important that judges give equal consideration to all the ranges of numbers... statistics can be a cruel mistress as youtubers like CPG Grey frequently point out.

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I really like the crowd judging idea of letting hackers do the judging. Science fair style seems to be the way to do it and it solves the problem of getting people to actually leave their booths.

</comment><comment><USER5> Now if only we could force all hackathon judges to read this...

</comment><comment><USER6> emphasis on learning over profit for sure !

<comment><USER7> I'm generally opposed to the co-opting of hackathons for startup prototyping. Startup Weekend and StartupBus and similar events have their place, but I wouldn't call it a hackathon.

<comment><AUTHOR> Judging is one of the places that the focus of startup prototyping/learning gets confused. Some judges don't really care about the technical aspect of your project. Boilermake stands out as a great hackathon that had judges emphasize the business nature of our projects.

I've had great experiences at events only to have them ruined by being asked how does my project make money. I dislike that question, especially when I spent a weekend doing something for the sake of making it instead working on a pretend pitch.</comment></comment></comment>


In a Startup: It's About The People - <AUTHOR> http://startupi.st/in-a-startup-its-about-the-people/ <comment><USER2> That sharing banner that pops up across the left side of the page is hella annoying to the point where I couldn't even give the content more than a glance. Until they post another article though you can read a version without the spam banner on their front page at <http://startupi.st/>, or you can use Readability or "reader" in Safari.

<comment><USER3> Same for me: <http://img2.pict.com/70/30/58/3833301/0/1279933262.jpg>

I found out, though, if I resized the window to a smaller size, the banner disappears.

<comment><AUTHOR> Whoa, thanks for the heads up!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> Or: 5 reasons why I left my last job. It was a toxic environment where the management didn't trust the employees (taking away personal laptops, then iphones; requiring time-sheets; installed website-blocking software; etc.)

Hiring was also emphasized on finding the cheapest developers as possible, preferably ones _without_ experience because they specifically wanted developers they could "train" to their backwards coding practices. And this was a startup with only 12 people total.

After three years of trying to hire new developers, they still only had the original people that started the company because the cheap devs they tried to hire never were any good (how surprising). And those devs had been working at the company for so long that they're scared to leave for a better job.

/end rant.

Wish they'd read this article and change their tactics.

</comment><comment><USER5> It's very important to treat people well. But you don't always have the money to hire the best people, especially if you're a bootstrapped startup. One of the hardest psychological things about starting a business for me was taking no pay for a long time while paying others decently for work. Having an employee make considerably more than you is not psychologically healthy. I found myself having to guard against irrational feelings of resentment when going through tough times.

Money solves a lot of problems, and I think this is an area where funding is actually useful. Still better to grind through doing all the work yourself and not give out equity though.

<comment><USER6> I'm just curious: what did you live off (food, rent...) while you were taking no pay?

<comment><USER5> Always managed to find enough to live and pay rent. Took a part-time job for two months at one point in order to afford to be able to move.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I cannot upvote this enough as I am internally battling between my envy to resign next monday and the need to feed my son.</comment>


Ask HN: Why can't I buy or rent a digital copy of Will Ferrell's Anchorman?  - <AUTHOR>

<comment><USER2> I'm sure you'll find that's the case for many titles.

I suppose the rightholders might have an exclusive deal with somebody you haven't checked, like RedBox.

<comment><USER2> Just checked, RedBox etc. rent discs and iTunes sells it. As far as I can tell nobody has the digital rental. Maybe Apple has an exclusive license to the digital copy and chooses not to rent it. Speculating, they might lose money renting it, but they don't want anybody else to have it (anticompetitive?)

<comment><AUTHOR> I can not find it for sale on iTunes. Can you post a link?

Red Box had it listed in its catalog but did not have it available for rent in the Silicon Valley area.

<comment><USER2> [https://itunes.apple.com/ie/movie/anchorman-legend-ron- burgu...](https://itunes.apple.com/ie/movie/anchorman-legend-ron- burgundy/id297465313)

(That was not easy.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> Dreamworks may be one of the studios that just doesn't do digital rentals.</comment>


Ask HN: What is Google doing with GIS data? - <AUTHOR>

About 2 months ago at a startup demo event a programmer mentioned to me that Google was working on new GIS algorithms but he couldn't say much else. I got the impression he got the data second handed, and offhanded.
A few weeks later I spoke with a a trusted contact who is a project manager for a company who is working on GIS data. I asked about the Google rumor and they responded affirmatively saying yes, Google is and their company is actually working with them. He refused to give any details.
So what's Google doing with GIS?
Disclaimer: I have never worked at or applied for Google. <comment><USER2> The biggest projects that I'm aware of are google maps (managing imagery, base maps, road and place data, etc) and google earth engine (a platform for raster satellite data analysis) but I suspect there is a large spatial component to their advertising wing, incorporating location from mobile devices into predictive algorithms.</comment>