Ask pg: Should I be more active on HN?

5 points by RKoutnik 13y ago ↗ HN

We're working on building a pretty cool startup (if I do say so myself) and will be applying to the summer HN batch. I've noticed that YC people (especially pg) are saying that activity on HN is a good way to raise visibility for your application [0 (also one of his essays, can't figure out which one)]. Like usual, there's no statistics, so I'm asking here.

I'm not very active on HN, using it to drive attention to my blog [1] and the occasional comment. I've got complete confidence that we'll be accepted if we can make it to the interview, but I'm a bit worried about standing out among the thousands of other applicants to make it to the interview.

Should I spend more time saying "smart things" on HN? I'd rather work on improving our startup but my priority is getting YC's attention.

Essentially, is the extra visibility provided by commenting worth the time now to get the benefit of YC later?

[0] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4133608

[1] http://recoding.blogspot.com

3 comments

[ 3.9 ms ] story [ 16.2 ms ] thread

itsprofitbaron 13y ago ↗

Work on your startup.

There's no better way to get YC's attention than applying with a startup which is seeing strong user growth/revenue in a large (or potentially large) market.

merinid 13y ago ↗

I second that. Being active on HN or anywhere else on the internet can help buzz, credibility, and promotion of your startup. But at the end of the day, only two things count: product and company.

deluxaran 13y ago ↗

If you want people to know about you and your product? Great then the first thing you want to do is to make sure that you have a great product that people will love and it won't be just buzz and promotion. I don't say that being active on the internet will harm you, but it may take away some of the time you would work on the startup. So the choice is all yours, but in my opinion the answer is somewhere in the middle, like starting to promote yourself and the startup after you are starting to be in the last stages of release so you could build a buzz for it and help with the first weeks.