Ask HN: Somebody beat us to Hacker News. What can we do?
We launched https://www.svyft.com a few days ago.
Somebody posted it on Hacker News before we could claim our luck to the front page. Is there something we can do?
This is the post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7768926
Why does it matter?
As you mention, it's all about luck regardless. In fact, the previous submission was submitted at an optimal time anyways: http://i.imgur.com/BNCjNwK.png
(picture from http://minimaxir.com/2014/02/hacking-hacker-news/ )
Max, I agree about the luck factor. But new app launches (Show HN) generally get better attention on HN. Dont you think ??
Actually, for that article, I had made a score histogram for Show HN articles, and it was near identical to the histogram of normal articles. (i.e. Show HNs don't lead to a significant change in the expected number of points). I had removed it from the post because it was getting long. :P
What you're seeing is confirmation bias. There are many, many Show HN posts made, and very few get upvoted.
if your marketing plan was mostly about submitting it to HN you might want to fire your marketing team.