Tell HN: Coming soon – “Meet the Batch” threads for parallel Launch HNs

[dang]

Each YC startup gets one chance to do a Launch HN thread that gets placed on HN's front page [1]. This is one of the three things that HN gives back to YC in exchange for funding it [2]. We started doing these in 2017 and they've worked out pretty well over the years [3], I think mostly because they're more interesting than job ads. However, they have to be written in a special way for that to work (more on this below).

Problem: HN's front page can only accommodate a fixed number of startups while YC keeps funding more (700+ a year and growing). We do two Launch HNs a day during the stampede before each Demo Day, but I think we overdid that in W21, and even 2 per day all year, which is out of the question, still wouldn't be enough.

Other problem: I work with the startups to edit their launch texts into a form that HN is more likely to find interesting. Mostly this consists of cajoling, persuading, and (when that fails) forcing them not to sound like marketing, sales, or PR. If you'd like to see the instructions we give founders about this, they're at [4].

Founders are used to talking to customers and investors, but those styles work poorly on HN, so most Launch HNs need a lot of editing. Unlike the number of front page slots, this work could be scaled, but it has to be done by someone who's familiar with what HN likes and what its conventions are, and it hasn't (yet) proven easy to train anyone to do it—you sort of have to dip them in the vat of HN over and over until they get steeped, and most people don't want to be dipped in a vat, or at least not this vat. So in practice I am still the bottleneck. 40 startups are currently in the pipe and it's backing up faster than I can process them.

Hence, new idea time: we're going to try aggregate launch threads for YC startups, tentatively called "Meet the Batch". These will be like Launch HNs, but with more than one startup, and shorter blurbs. Each startup will post its blurb as a comment and then HN readers can discuss and interact with the ones they find interesting.

Since each of these will be in lieu of a Launch HN, the number of threads won't go up, but throughput will. We have no idea how well it will work—it's an experiment. We'll probably start with one per week and do traditional Launch HNs the rest of the time. (Edit: a few weeks later, we seem to have settled on two per week.)

Which startups will get standalone Launch HNs vs. being in the aggregate threads? I'll decide that based mostly on what I think HN is likely to find interesting. That's not the same thing as which startups are good (or I think are good!) so please don't take it as that sort of signal. (Edit: it has more to do with what categories haven't appeared lately [5].)

So anyway, that's the plan. I wanted to give you all a heads-up, first so you know what to expect, and second so we can answer any questions and have any meta discussion now, instead of later when comments should really be about the startups. If you have questions, feedback, or hounds to unleash, have at it—also, any ideas about how we can do any of this better are most welcome.

p.s. Late Sunday is the HN equivalent of a Friday news drop but it's the only spare time I had. We might re-up this thread tomorrow (a la [6]) so others get the info.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/launches

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html#yc - the other two are job ads and orange usernames.

[3] Past posts about this: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

[4] https://news.ycombinator.com/yli.html

[5] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...

[6] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26998308

[jedberg]

Here is a crazy idea, kinda like how subreddits on reddit work. Use the separate Launch HN page[0], with just the launch threads (one per company). Put the one that is currently at the top on the main home page (or maybe two, or maybe treat it like a stack and pop the top on a regular basis skipping ones that have already appeared).

That way people who are interested in launches (like me) can check out the launch page, but everyone else will still see the most popular launches. Then you don't have to guess which ones will be popular.

Maybe once a week have an automatic summary thread for all the ones that didn't make the home page similar to what you describe above, with one per comment.

As for you being the editing bottleneck, why not teach the partners how to do the editing so they can be the first step, and then maybe you just do a final pass after the partners have hopefully mostly gotten it good?

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/launches

[sen]

> Use the separate Launch HN page

I’ve never even seen that page until you posted it, and it doesn’t show up in the top or bottom nav bars. If this was linked up top like Show and Ask, then I’d look at it way more regularly.

Add it to the top bar, have a random one display (not posted, but pinned/displayed) at the top of the front page for each load. Considering it’s HNs core purpose I don’t think anyone would complain about having a sticky random Launch HN at the top during launch season?

[dang]

Ok, good idea—thanks! Will consider.

(Except for the partners part. I don't have that kind of access!)

[OoTheNigerian]

Ha!

I was already typing this before your comment articulated it excellently.

Dang, I am assuming how people see comments is randomised? So the part 2 of the comment (those that did not make it will all have an equal chance to be seen).

Assuming it is not asking for too much customisation, these summary threads can go down much slower than the usual one person Launch HN.

[barlo]

That’s a simple and elegant solution. I believe this is much like how threads prefixed ‘Ask HN’ already work, too?

[Nextgrid]

Feedback-wise, here's mine: I'm not sure this is a good idea, as it means discussion will be drowned out & mixed up if you combine multiple different startups into one thread.

I personally don't mind seeing more Launch HNs concurrently, as the voting system will quickly clear out the non-interesting ones. And if they are interesting, they why not? It's more interesting/insightful/thought-provoking content for the front page which fits the intent of the site, and comment threads are often a goldmine of information even if the startup of the post itself is irrelevant to you.

[dang]

I'm not sure it's a good idea either, for the reason you say. Actually it's a long-established principle that lists don't make great HN posts (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...). So we may well end up doing what you suggest—we'll have to see.

However, it would still leave open the problem of editing work, which is currently unsolved. I'm hoping that the Meet the Batch threads will involve much less of that per startup. Letting the startups present themselves unfiltered to HN is a really bad idea, because most founders don't understand the culture here and naively step into HN the same way they would, say, ProductHunt—or worse, repeat their Demo Day pitch. This is a very efficient way to get yourself flagged and flamed, and also is a risk for YC (imagine "I don't understand how YC can possibly fund such #@!&*" comments x 1000).

We explain the difference clearly enough at https://news.ycombinator.com/yli.html, but an explanation isn't enough. It needs collaborative work in practice. Personally I think not sounding like an ad and speaking as a person rather than a brand is good practice throughout life, not just Launch HNs, but I'll settle for getting Launch HNs right; that's turns out to be hard enough.

[timdorr]

I think you can keep it focused as long as there is good isolation between each startup. So, my thought is this:

- Make each startup have a top level comment.

- In the OP self text, include the company name, tagline, and intro paragraph. Below that, link to their top level comment.

- Each top level comment would have the same name, tagline, paragraph content, so you'd always have it available.

In the end, each startup would have a page laid out very similar to the usual Launch HN posts, but they wouldn't be drowned out by the sheer number of them on the front page.

[addaon]

I agree, I'm concerned that this will make the threads a bit of a mess...

As another (unsolicited) idea, how about having them overwhelm the main page and let the voting system sort it out -- but also add a top-level tab for "Meet the Batch" to give a bit more visibility and longevity. This seems like an appropriate use of HN for YC, and if anything increases the value given to the batch companies, rather than (slightly) diluting it.

[npilk]

I’ve never reflected on why the Launch HNs are so interesting to read, but after looking through the guidelines it makes sense. Learning about a company in the tone of someone speaking to peers instead of selling to an audience is a breath of fresh air. Thanks for all the editing work you put in to make that happen.

[clairity]

the standard format seems to be getting stale to my ears. they all start out with the founding myth, told bedtime story style, which wears on the feelers after a while. i'd suggest getting even more direct and succinct by leaving out the myth: "after running into [this stupid problem] a few dozen times, we decided to try to solve it with [this hopefully novel solution]. it grew [in this direction] to become [our product]." then maybe relate two or three relevant, novel, non-obvious details as conversation starters, along with the requisite who (by, and for), what (major features/options), and how much.

[quickthrower2]

I have noticed they are in a distinctive style of “Hi we are X … some background about us … the problem we identified … how we solve it … we think there is a market because …”

I haven’t read the guidelines but that’s the pattern I’ve seen.

I’ve always assumed this is how they also communicated to VCs and potential employees about their history and vision. It’s sad if they have to be more salesy for those people.

[bambax]

> I work with the startups to edit their launch texts into a form that HN is more likely to find interesting. Mostly this consists of cajoling, persuading, and (when that fails) forcing them not to sound like marketing, sales, or PR.

When I read a launch HN I'm always surprised how it's usually a very personal, specific, engaging story about the problem and how the team wanted to address it.

I thought founders were in general excellent writers; but in fact it's the editing! Really well done (no sarcasm: it's positively excellent).

[dang]

Well thank you!

Some commenters have been reporting that the blurbs are too long, and that they find the backstories annoying. My impression was always that HN tends to appreciate inside details and obscure aspects of the story or problem. Would be interested to hear your and others' take on that.

[hayksaakian]

The intrinsic problem is you have a finite amount attention and an increasing number of startups. I'm not sure how much aggregated threads actually solve that (not at all IMO).

I think you just let them go at it with Launch HN's and let the upvotes fall where they will.

Re: Writing Launch HNs -- My idea: set a lower character limit on what they're allowed to submit and you'll have less to edit. If there's more information that people want to know, create the expectation that they should just ask in the comments.

[BeefySwain]

> If there's more information that people want to know, create the expectation that they should just ask in the comments.

To expand on this, it may be the case that less is more here. Making the description be very short (a paragraph or so - no more than 200 words total) and being emphatic that the founders need to be available to respond to comments will result in greater engagement I'm sure.

If in the course of discussion, the same question keeps popping up, adding a FAQ or some addendum edits to the body should work to fix that.

[rememberlenny]

While not directly commented on the point above, I would like to publicly recognize dang for his Herculean effort to manage HN and process all of the Launch HN posts. He is an absolute champion and is a unmatched pillar that makes this community run.

Thank you dang!

[volta83]

About you being the bottleneck, the only problem I see is editing being so much work for you.

IMO it should be the startup job to write a Launch HN that fits the guidelines, and your job should be only to properly document / maintain the guidelines, and decide whether a post is “ready” or not, giving minimal feedback.

There are hundreds of Launch HN that startups can already read to learn how to do it the right way.

If they don’t and their post is not ready, just say “no”.

That’s something that you might be able to scale much better than having to edit all posts yourself.

If a startup marketing / PR team doesn’t have the skills or time to create a proper Launch HN, then that’s a problem that the startup should fix and it’s IMOa skill worth learning for them.

Let them learn this.

[frans]

Good point, only delegation will work. It's in the startup's best interest to do a good job at this. Unless they don't consider the HN readers to be their target audience, in which case it's not relevant here anyhow.

Doing other people's job, trying to make it perfect and getting behind with a growing backlog is a recipe for a burnout...

[csnweb]

I don't know what's in the pipeline, but might there be a way to broadly batch them by topic? If it would be a topic one is generally not interested one wouldn't need to check all the individual ones to see if they are interesting. Could also be helpful if the blurbs are all at the top in the description, as the comment section will probably get pretty long and then it might not be so easy to go through the list, esp. on mobile. Also thanks a lot for your work .

[dang]

To judge by how bad a job of co-ordinating all this I have been doing, I don't think it's likely that the threads will be organized by topic any time soon. However, the things you mention are the sort of direction we could possibly evolve in if the experiment proves worth keeping.

[noduerme]

I'm sort of stuck on / amazed at the idea that YC is turning out 700 startups a year that don't have a clue how to write a prospectus that HN is interested in - without forcefully rewriting and bumping it. Not that this is the right place to ask about commercial viability. But the only conclusion I can draw is that these are bad ideas, or at least shot through with holes. If that's the case then the fair thing to do would be to let them surface and be subject to the same criticism as everyone else's semi-decent ideas. That's the service HN provides. If the idea is that by giving them special treatment or keeping them on the front page artificially, there's some other more private service being provided, then that's at real friction with the core values of HN and the (stated) values of YC.

My view would be you should probably treat them all equally, though. To the extent they get more lingering time on the front page than a "Show HN" they shouldn't be prioritized based on your (dang's) theories. Not that I think you'd be wrong to weigh them on the hoof, but you're setting yourself up for disaster with that.

My suggestion would be: Whatever the algo is for keeping them on the front page for a day, cap it at 1/day and shorten the time for each exceeding it. If they have 365*2/year, then it's l/2 day each. That gives every one equal time, without bias, and puts the onus on the generators to create good enough content.

Just my 2¢. Godspeed you.

[edit] Just to clarify, what I mean is that personally getting involved in judgment calls about time on the front page - even though or especially because you may already be trying to help them shape their pitch - exposes you to a whole ton of negativity and blame, with basically no upside at all. And I realize you're doing this out of goodwill. I think there's a basic truth and honesty in the upvoting on this site, and so did the founder. To the extent you're bending rules for the golden startups, the only sensible thing to do is bend them evenly. Herding them into a ghetto (subreddit) won't be acceptable, probably. It's always been sink or swim, and I think PG said that pretty early on. If there are more fish in the pond, that's their choice; it just changes the buoyancy.

[dang]

Your edit is interesting and I want to respond to it too:

> personally getting involved in judgment calls about time on the front page - even though or especially because you may already be trying to help them shape their pitch - exposes you to a whole ton of negativity and blame, with basically no upside at all. And I realize you're doing this out of goodwill.

It has less to do with goodwill and more to do with risk. If we repeatedly put YC startups in front of HN in a way that creates negative impressions with this audience, we'd be training HN to have a negative view of YC startups and ultimately of YC. That's the worst thing we could do. It would be far better to launch no startups at all.

The relationship between HN and YC is subtle, delicate, and exceedingly important. It's important to both sides, but much more to HN than YC. One can imagine YC without HN, but not HN without YC.

I could write an essay if not a book about this, but the bottom line is that managing existential risks to HN is the most important part of my job, and having the relationship between HN and YC grow sour from either direction would be a major such risk.

[dang]

I think you may be underestimating how weird HN is. Founders are optimizing for customers, as they should. The fact that HN reacts to that with "I'm not your customer, buddy" is more on us than them.

[codetrotter]

> mostly because they're more interesting than job ads

This made me think actually, I love reading everything like this, and seeing new startups, but what is the goal of “meet the batch”?

I always assumed it was part getting them customers, and part encouraging more people from the HN community to apply to YC. But is it also a goal to get people to work for the startups? Because that’s something I haven’t thought about in such context. But it would make sense as well I think. I am not familiar with what actually happens during YC, is it only the team that applied or do many of them start employing people while they are still in YC?

[dang]

Most startups are too early-stage to be hiring during YC. If all goes well, they raise money at Demo Day and then are in a position to hire after the batch. But YC does fund some startups who are further along, and occasionally they hope to attract potential employees with their Launch HN.

The goal of "Meet the Batch" is simply to distribute HN-launchiness to more startups than we can do with standalone threads. It will of course be more diluted by being spread further (I think Jerry Weinberg used to call that the Law of Peanut Butter), but hopefully still useful, and the startups retain their chance to do a standalone Launch HN in the future.

As for why startups launch on HN at all, I suppose it's to attract (1) customers and (2) investors—hopefully in that order—in addition to the hiring case just mentioned.

[boulos]

My only worry is the pagination limits. If you combine enough startups into a meet the batch, how many will reasonably stay on the first page of comments?

[dang]

Hmm good point. I guess we'll have to see if it's a problem in practice.

[brainless]

I do not think this helps in engagement from the HN community if you want that for Launch HN. I do not interact with so many of them but with a few I really connect. But that is because the entire thread is dedicated to them. Perhaps it is me and my attention issues but I jump between comments a lot.

When all the comments are about the same startup then jumping is less of a problem. With each comment thread being for a different startup, I feel I will lose focus too quickly. I am not sure to be honest, this is just my gut feeling. I can also understand how the current situation is not working out so there is no way other than trying new Launch HN ideas.

Also, it seems you will end up being called the "gate keeper". I hate that term and a lot of people simply will throw their tomatoes/eggs at you.

[zarzavat]

I personally wouldn't mind seeing two launch HNs per day, it's only a few pixels of my screen and occasionally one of those launch HNs will become a Stripe or an Airbnb so it's interesting to get to know these startups before they start making headlines.

[yaseer]

I hope the experiment works!

It's likely you have thought of this and decided against, but curious to hear your reasoning. Why would this this not work similar to the 'Show' section? i.e. a dedicated page for YC startups.

Interesting posts naturally float to the front page from 'Show', past a certain threshold. Potentially this could act as the filter to decide if a full 'Launch HN' (complete with your editing expertise!) Would be worthwhile.

[dang]

It's also an option, but HN follows a power law (doesn't everything?) and the front page sits at the top of the power-law pole. Also, the current idea is also an experiment in solving the editing problem, which I described above and at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27877627, which a separate section of top-level posts would not do.

[merrvk]

Great idea, looking forward to reading about the next batch

[dang]

If we do this every week it will hopefully be less overwhelming than the press reports on Demo Day, which usually take the form "Meet 75 of the 350 startups that launched on day 1" and then again the next day.

[wellthisisgreat]

Although not affiliated with YC in any way, I’d add to the voices that don’t mind seeing two Launch HN a day. The uninteresting post will be lost and the interesting one will generate a deeper discussion. Having startups publish a blurb will only push them to try yo market themselves in other ways more aggressively (adding comments everywhere about the services they provide, which will get downvoted of course, but still)

[graderjs]

Good write-up. Nice way to solve a difficult problem, or try to anyway, and thanks for posting the instructions!

[wizardofmysore]

Even though you don't intend to, it would definitely paint a picture that if an individual post is made for a company they have more clout or value than the batched ones. So please be mindful of that.

[Nextgrid]

Is "Launch HN" a "regulated" (for the lack of a better word) concept uniquely for YC startups, or can anyone also submit those for their own (bootstrapped or non-YC-funded) companies?

[dang]

It's restricted to YC startups. I'd love to open it to non-YC startups but we haven't figured out a way to do that which wouldn't end up being the same thing as Show HN (https://news.ycombinator.com/show), which already exists.

[taitems]

For the rest of us punters:

- "Show HN: "

- "Ask HN: "

- "Tell HN: "

[monkeydust]

Is there a list somewhere for all YC startups since conception of the scheme with key metrics, so thinking.

Name | Desc| Incorporated In | URL | YC Vintage | Funding | Raising | ...

Would genuinely like to see this as a UK Angel.