Growth idea action plan
HN expert comments before self-promotional posts
Treat useful comments on other people's threads as a demand channel, because expertise often converts more cleanly than showing up only when you want attention for your own launch.
Why this can grow a startup
A good comment lets buyers discover you while they are already reading about the problem. There is less defensive filtering because you are helping the discussion rather than asking the room to switch context into launch mode. Over time that builds familiarity, and the inbound interest tends to arrive warmer because it started from demonstrated expertise instead of announcement copy.
Ian's take
From scaling consumer platforms across MENA and Southeast Asia, my default is to distrust growth work that only looks good in a slide. I would treat this as earning the right to be in the room, not dropping a campaign into a room. In community-led growth, the first job is to notice what people already care about, then bring a useful proof, tool, teardown, or question that makes the conversation better. I would run it small enough to learn quickly, then only scale the parts that real users repeat, save, reply to, or buy from. For this tactic, I would watch one clear growth signal before putting more time or budget behind it.
Action plan
- Define one narrow startup segment where hn expert comments before self-promotional posts can create a measurable lift.
- Turn the tactic into one offer, page, campaign, or workflow for the Hacker News and Community channel.
- Use the evidence from news.ycombinator.com to set the first version of the message, format, and audience.
- Launch a small test for 7 to 14 days with one success metric: one measurable growth signal.
- Review the result, keep the winning message, remove weak variants, and turn the learning into a repeatable growth playbook.
Source-backed example
In Ask HN: What HN post made you money?, one founder said random expert comments led more reliably to inbound sales interest that converted into revenue than the Show HN spike did.
Source: Ask HN: What HN post made you money? (news.ycombinator.com)
GrowthDex source hub: Ask HN: What HN post made you money?
Last checked: 2026-05-27
Adjacent tactics in the same lane
If this page is close to your problem, these tactic pages usually belong in the same working set.
- Product Hunt community runway before launch 2 shared channels · 1 shared stage
- Permission-based founder DM after public help 1 shared channel · 2 shared stages
- Concierge onboarding with direct messages before self-serve 2 shared channels
- Feature-to-channel fit before launch distribution 2 shared channels
Related GrowthDex essays
- The launch thread only works if the product can finish the first job Hacker News, brand trust, launches
Read GrowthDex essays
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Why this is worth your time
GrowthDex starts with tactics that founders, marketers, and product teams have actually tried. Each essay turns the evidence into a practical move you can test without pretending one case study is a guarantee.
Ian Goh has helped grow consumer platforms across Southeast Asia, India, and MENA. His work includes scaling Tiki to 100M+ users, doubling BIGO's MENA revenue in 7 months, and increasing OYO's direct booking share across 6 Southeast Asian markets.
- Helped scale Tiki to 100M+ users.
- Doubled BIGO's MENA revenue in 7 months.
- Raised OYO's direct booking share by 50% across 6 Southeast Asian markets.
Want help turning this into a growth system?
If you want someone to pressure-test this against your real market, Ian works with founders on growth, market entry, and operator-led distribution.
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