LeadPerchGuide
Hacker News lead generation, done the HN way
Hacker News is small compared with Reddit or X, but it is dense with founders, engineers and technical decision-makers who openly debate which tools to use. That makes it a strong source of leads for developer tools, B2B SaaS and technical services, as long as you respect how the community works.
Where buying intent shows up on HN
- Ask HN threads: “Ask HN: What do you use for…?” or “Ask HN: Alternatives to X?” are explicit recommendation requests.
- Comments under launches and news: people often say what they currently use, what frustrates them, and what they would switch to. The best signals are frequently a few levels deep in a thread.
- Show HN posts in your category: commenters compare the launch with tools they already pay for and list missing features.
- Competitor news: pricing changes, outages and shutdowns bring out “what are people moving to?” comments.
How to search Hacker News
HN’s official search is hn.algolia.com, which searches stories and comments and can sort by date. Useful queries:
- “alternative to <competitor>” and “<competitor> pricing”;
- “what do you use for <job>”, “recommend a <category>”;
- your category name restricted to the last week, sorted by date.
Free alert services such as F5Bot can email you when a keyword appears on Hacker News, but they match exact keywords and do not judge intent.
Judge intent before replying
- High: an explicit request for a recommendation or alternative, a stated deadline, or someone actively migrating.
- Medium: a detailed pain point your product solves, without shopping language. Add knowledge, not a pitch.
- Low: abstract debate, hiring posts, launches unrelated to your category. Skip.
How to reply on HN without getting flagged
HN’s guidelines discourage using the site primarily for promotion, and the community quickly flags marketing language. What works:
- Answer the actual question with specifics: trade-offs, limits, numbers you can back up.
- Disclose plainly when you mention something you built (“I built X, so I’m biased”).
- Mention competitors fairly when they are the better fit.
- Never ask for upvotes, use multiple accounts, or paste the same reply across threads.
Speed matters
HN threads move quickly and fall off the front page within hours, so a useful reply on the first day gets far more readers than one a week later. Checking your queries daily is usually enough.
Automating the monitoring
LeadPerch checks Hacker News (plus Reddit and, on paid plans, X) for your phrases every day, scores each post or comment for buying intent from 0–100 with a one-line reason, and drafts a disclosed reply for you to edit and post yourself. Hacker News is included on the free plan.
FAQ
Is self-promotion allowed on Hacker News?
Show HN exists for sharing things you made. In regular threads, a disclosed mention that genuinely answers a question is generally tolerated; promotional comments are not.
Does LeadPerch post to Hacker News?
No. LeadPerch only finds, scores and drafts. You post every reply yourself.
Is LeadPerch affiliated with Hacker News or Y Combinator?
No. LeadPerch is independent and uses publicly available data.
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