HN Explorer

Ask PG: Special tab for reviewing new startups on HN?

135 points by paulnelligan ↗ HN
I've made this request already on another thread. Please consider this rerequest:

I would love to see a tab on HN for people launching new products. i.e. a way to submit your startup for review. Since HN is essentially a startup community, wouldn't it make sense to distinguish a 'review my startup' entry from a 'NASA discovers oxygen on Pluto' entry ? ... especially considering that the submitter often has put months and months of time into it, and would REALLY appreciate and value feedback from other users, instead of quickly dropping off (or not even making) the front page ...

47 comments

[ 3.6 ms ] story [ 111 ms ] thread
Banx
I have to agree, this would be awesome
vaksel
I think it's fine as it is...those stories always end up getting a lot of upvotes.
tsycho
While some stories definitely get a lot of attention, especially the YC ones, many others however drop off without ever reaching the front page.

For many fledgling startups, the initial HN mention can be very important, and a special page for them would be very useful.

ams6110
If your startup sinks or swims dependent on an appearance on the HN front page, I think your problem is more fundamental. HN is a tiny, tiny fraction of the internet; and I know more than one professional developer who's unaware of it.
paulnelligan
I think it's not about depending on HN for your startup's success, I think it's about creating a greater avenue of exposure for those who have invested months (sometimes longer) of their time into building a product ...
hmardukas182
An appearance on the front page is less about sink/swim and more about feedback. Early feedback and first-hand user experiences/ideas are a huge asset for a start up. HN is unique because its readers are more likely to be early adopters, and most have a tech background - which I have found improve the quality of feedback/suggestions.

Love this idea. Would be happy to see it added to HN.

robryan
Hardly anyone is going to be trying to build a userbase off a hn mention. The feedback though can be very valuable and those that do get a lot of attention usually end up with a lot of it.
paulnelligan
I disagree, I've found it very difficult to get upvotes in the past, that might be the quality of the product, however it would be great to find ways to improve that product given the right feedback and the right exposure ...
djm
I'd like to see increased focus from HN on reviewing new startups too. One way might be a special tab but I'd suggest an alternative - putting 'review my startup' posts on the main page and setting a time period for them to fall off.

You could keep flagging to get rid of abuse and adjust the rate with the story upvote so that time on the main page is still a function of popularity.

benologist
i think spammers would have a field day with that...
djm
Would you mind please clarifying what you meant?

I see how spammers would create fake 'review my startup' posts to try and game the amount of front page time they got but if flagging is still applied to these posts then they would disappear quickly as people recognise that the submissions do not fit the 'review my startup' criteria and flag them.

Maybe I'm missing something obvious.

benologist
I mean if I come along, submit my site, and automatically go to the front page where I then have to be removed if I'm bad, then it will attract every spamming jackass out there with HN open in one window and AdSense in the other.
djm
Oh, I see. I had guessed that stuff like that would be flagged to oblivion fast enough that it wouldn't be an issue. I guess that the speed at which flagging would have an affect relates to the number of people with flag permissions who are currently browsing the main page so the spam problem may vary with time of day etc.

Perhaps an alternative might be reducing the amount of upvotes that a 'review my startup' post requires to get on the main page in the first place. Or perhaps some combination of the two.

jmilloy
I also think there is a lot of room between flag-worthy and front-page-worthy. Any legit review my startup gets main page? What minimally counts as a startup?

On the other hand, low-scoring "show" submissions might especially stand a lot to gain from constructive feedback, something (as noted) they probably don't get when they don't make it to the main page.

Separating show submissions to a new tab allows you to use upvotes appropriately and distinctly. I would upvote startups as "news" in a different way than I would upvote startups as "review-worthy."

andyking
I'd love one for Ask HNs as well.

I posted one the other day which got no upvotes and one comment, and they're one of my favourite parts of the site generally, so keeping them all in one place would mean those of us interested in that side of things would find it easier.

alex_c
I thought that's what the "ask" link at the top is for?
voxmatt
I understand (and appreciate) that part of HN's brand/allure is how simple and pared-down it is, but I think we can make room for this tab--it would be a great service to the community this site was built for. Right?
mmatey
Since hacking and startups are very much tied together in this community, I give it a "thumbs up" too.
d0m
I have to agree that it's often really sad when you submit your project and get no upvote and cannot get on the front page. However, I'm not sure a different tab is the best option.
Jabbles
PG didn't think it would matter too much as you can easily search for those stories if you're interested.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2862202

paulnelligan
That search is for '(YC S11)', I don't see a standardized way of searching for 'review my startup' entries for those of us not fortunate enough to be part of YC ... that's more or less what i'm suggesting ...
decadentcactus
Maybe we'll have to figure out a standard tag to use for review?
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almost
This sounds awesome! Review my startup type posts are often the most interesting on HN.
hagyma
"Show HN:" is exactly for this purpose.

If people care or show interest, they will interact with your post, if they don't... :)

ps: we are all in the same boat

paulnelligan
true, but wouldn't it be great to have a tab for those entries ? :)
hagyma
well... I see the re-post and discussion of nearly all posts from many sites.

i'd be happy to filter those out somehow... :)

_delirium
If you make it a "text" post it'll go on the Ask tab, where it falls off much slower. A common format (less common lately) used to be to make a text post titled "Show HN: something something", where you explain what you're doing, what you'd like feedback on, and then include a link at the end, instead of just submitting the link.
joebo
I say leave it the way it is. The current method somewhat requires a user to be part of the community for a while (or at least be a lurker who reads) to get upvoted. You need to know 'Show HN:' and you need to write in a non-spammy way. It seems to work and keeps the quality higher in my opinion.

I also like the current ratio of what seems to be one or two per day that make the front page. That's enough for me to occasionally click through instead of going to a separate view and weeding through it.

brlewis
I don't like the current ratio of what seems to be one or two "Show HN" posts per day. I'd like HN to be a place where I can feel surrounded by people who are shipping. It doesn't have to be new startups; it could be new features or improvements on existing services.

A special tab akin to "Ask" would do this better than making me do a "Show HN" search, because of voting.

dpcan
This sound good, but to be honest, I'd never remember to click on it.
Shenglong
The startup listings here are the advertisements on HN I believe. Giving them an individual tab would be synonymous to another site making an "advertisements" page with all their ads.
duck
Just a plug for my project, but I gather a lot of the new startups and projects that launch in my weekly Hacker Newsletter (http://www.hackernewsletter.com). That actually was the reason I started it, because I enjoy the "Show HN" posts a lot and love to give feedback on them.

However... I have noticed a trend this year of a lot of announcements that only have a email sign-up form and not much substance. For those I have pretty much stopped including them as I don't think they provide much value.

playhard
"Do What people want" is the important piece of PG's advice to startups.It would not have got to the front of Hacker news and 112 points as of now unless hackers wanted it. Hope PG ends up making what we want.
alexkearns
I agree. I think this would be very useful. I have submitted a couple of my projects for feedback from HN and in both cases received no comments.

I am not whinging about that - my projects might just be deadly dull (A Social Network for Ogglers of Desiccating Colored Emulsions after all probably won't set the world alight).

But there is a small chance that someone might have felt compelled to give some feedback if there was a section of the site dedicated to this.

I also personally love seeing the weird and wonderful ideas people come up with for projects.

notatoad
plenty of 'review my startup' type threads do get attention. if your 'review my startup' topic can't make it to the front page of HN, chances are it won't get enough people excited to be a successful business either.
Roritharr
I strongly agree, i've made an Show HN Post two month ago without getting atleast a few comments or clicks.

I really hoped i could get some feedback but it was a strong news day and therefor i never got enough upvotes to make the frontpage.

ig1
The wider problem is that HN is no longer about startups. It might have been the case when we had 10,000 regular user, but now that we have 100k-200k regulars users people involved in startups form a much smaller part of the community.

You see this not only when it comes to new startup launches but also startup related articles, I see plenty of great articles about startups on the new page that a few years ago would have got to the front page without problem but now they disappear off /new in 30 minutes with next to no chance of getting to the front page.

Recently I've been starting to spend more time on http://www.reddit.com/r/startups/ and less time on HN.