Quick answer: A Hacker News launch is a Show HN post. It's the right launch channel for a technical product, and it has its own rules: the community is made of engineers, it distrusts marketing language, and it ranks submissions by upvotes and comment velocity over the first few hours.

This is how to do it without getting flamed.

The title format

Show HN titles follow the site's guidelines:

Show HN: ProductName – a one-line description of what it does

The description must be literal and specific. "Show HN: A faster way to explore Postgres logs" is a title. "Show HN: The most beautiful dev tool ever made" is not.

What the post body needs

A good Show HN post is written by the maker and answers, in order:

  1. What it is.
  2. Why it exists, ideally the technical problem or the frustration.
  3. How it's built, with one or two implementation details.
  4. The live link or a way to try it.
  5. What's hard or unfinished, and the specific feedback you want.

Hacker News readers click on the technical parts. A sentence about why you chose a particular architecture, how the parser works, or how you solved a hard problem does more than any feature list.

The ranking reality

HN ranking weighs upvotes, comments, and time. The first 30–60 minutes matter most, and the first comment often sets the tone. The front page is reachable with a genuine technical story; it's not reliably reachable through vote-sharing.

Vote rings and asks are detected and penalized. The legitimate path is the same as Product Hunt's: tell people who are genuinely interested the post exists.

How to behave in the comments

  • Answer technical questions with technical detail. "I'll get back to you" is acceptable when you genuinely don't know.
  • Don't argue with a dismissive top-level comment. A short, factual, non-defensive answer is best; defensiveness is the thing that tanks threads.
  • Stay present for the first few hours. The founder actively answering is a visible, positive signal.
  • Take the criticism in public. If a user reports a bug, thank them and note it; fix it during the thread if you can.

Timing

Weekday mornings and early afternoons in US time zones generally have the most engaged technical audience; there's no guaranteed slot. One post, not two: resubmitting the same product is against the spirit of the guidelines unless there's a major update.

How this differs from Product Hunt

  • Product Hunt is a product presentation with assets and a gallery. The playbook is here.
  • Show HN is a technical post with a plain-text body and a live link. The audience is developers and the expectation is engineering detail.

You can run both during the same launch week, but the materials aren't interchangeable: the PH gallery is visual; the Show HN post is prose. The week-of-content framework covers sequencing them.

What to do before posting

  • Create and age a real HN account; brand-new accounts are treated with suspicion.
  • Read the Show HN guidelines on the site itself before posting.
  • Make sure the live link works and the free plan or trial is accessible.
  • Prepare the visual assets for the channels that follow, since the post will drive traffic to the same landing page.

Frequently asked questions

Can I post a landing page without a product? Show HN is for things people can try. A pure pre-launch waitlist is generally removed or ignored.

What if my product isn't very technical? The trick is the technical problem or how it's built. If neither exists, HN may not be the right first channel.

Should I ask for upvotes? Never. Comment quality and a genuine audience are the legitimate inputs.

Can I relaunch? Yes, for major updates, and you should write "Show HN: ProductName 2.0 – [what changed]."

What do I do if the post gets no traction? Don't delete and repost. Use the feedback for the next version and try again later with a substantial update.

Write the post for one specific engineer who has the problem. If the technical detail is honest, the post stands on its own.

Related guide: the complete product launch checklist.

Related guide: the first 100 users guide.