Growth idea action plan
Show HN: explicitly pitch Reddit as a “hidden gem” channel (and show your numbers)
When you launch on Hacker News, don’t just share the product — share one sharp, contrarian distribution insight and back it with metrics; one maker framed Reddit as their highest-ROI channel and reported ~700k impressions, ~20k visitors, and 80 signups in 83 hours.
Why this can grow a startup
HN readers love useful tools, but they *also* love learning how things actually grow. A crisp insight (“Reddit is underrated if you post like a human”) acts like a hook: it earns attention even from people who won’t use your product. The distribution lesson becomes the shareable unit, and the product becomes the proof. You get two shots at engagement: the tool and the playbook. Operator lens: bring receipts. Show impressions, visitors, and signups, and describe the exact posting motion (which subreddits, what angle, what worked, what flopped). That specificity is what gets you thoughtful comments and follow-on traffic.
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. For acquisition, I would keep the first test narrow enough that a clear yes or no is possible. Broad reach is not useful if the signal is muddy. For this tactic, I would watch ~700k impressions; ~20k visitors; 80 signups (83 hours) before putting more time or budget behind it.
Action plan
- Define one narrow startup segment where show hn: explicitly pitch reddit as a “hidden gem” channel (and show your numbers) can create a measurable lift.
- Turn the tactic into one offer, page, campaign, or workflow for the Hacker News and Reddit 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: ~700k impressions; ~20k visitors; 80 signups (83 hours).
- Review the result, keep the winning message, remove weak variants, and turn the learning into a repeatable growth playbook.
Source-backed example
In a Show HN thread, a founder building a Reddit post scheduler said they got ~700k impressions in ~83 hours by posting on Reddit, calling it a “hidden gem” channel because founders can still get big reach without an existing audience. They reported ~20k visitors and 80 signups from the effort, and noted that later distribution was likely to come from partnerships and affiliates rather than relying only on organic posts.
Result: ~700k impressions; ~20k visitors; 80 signups (83 hours)
Source: news.ycombinator.com
Last checked: May 28, 2026 02:27 GMT+0800
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