Sometimes we’ll walk past a $50 bill, just lying there on the pavement. If we’re lucky, we’ll spot it and pick it up.
That’s just the sort of luck that Jack from Semicolon&Sons had. Here is what he wrote on Indie Hackers:
I was positively shocked this week at how strong a response I got from writing a single comment on Hacker News.
Basically, I was taking a breather from coding and saw someone had just posted a question Ask HN: How do you learn to build substantial, real-world apps?.
Considering this is my business, I simply chimed in with the following comment, basically saying “THIS IS WHAT I DO” and expecting a maximum of 2-3 sign-ups:
The comment got upvoted 20 times on HN and I netted about 70 sign-ups.
I reached out to Jack to ask if I could share his story here. He agreed and provided this additional insight:
Currently paying about $2 per sign-up on my best paid channel (Reddit). So one comment (70 sign-ups) was worth $140 to me.
It works for me, too
In the discussion that followed someone mentioned Syften:
I can’t compare that to the 70 sign-ups that Jack got. But as you see the comment got a fair amount of attention. And based on the emails I received, at least three new trials were started as a result.
As well as others
Simple Analytics share their statistics openly. Here is its traffic analysis (read more):
The practical lesson is simple: monitor places where your product knowledge is useful, not just places where your brand is mentioned. For Jack, that meant Hacker News threads about learning to build real software. For Syften, it means watching for people asking how to find, monitor, or respond to relevant online conversations.
Summary
Opportunities like that present themselves all the time, but to get lucky you have to:
- Spot them. How many $50 bills have you walked past without noticing?
- Respond authentically. Everybody loves to buy, but nobody likes being sold to.
- Post early. Most users only go through the comment section once.
Resources
- One Comment - $640 ARR Plus.
- Hacker News Posting Guide.
- How to Do Content Marketing on Social News Sites. More community promotion examples.
