A Comment Worth $140
Sometimes we’ll walk past a $50 bill, just laying there on the sidewalk. If we’re lucky we’ll spot it and pick it up.
That’s just the type 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 the following comment, basically saying “THIS IS WHAT I DO” and expecting MAX 2-3 signups:
The comment got upvoted 20 times on HN and I netted about 70 signups.
I reached out to Jack asking if I can share his story here. He agreed and provided me with this additional insight:
Currently paying about $2/signup on my best paid channel (reddit). So one comment (70 signups) was worth $140 to me.
Works for me, too
In the discussion that followed someone mentioned Syften:
I can’t compare that to the 70 signups 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 stats openly. Here is their traffic analysis (read more):
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?
- Reply authentically. Everybody loves to buy, but nobody likes being sold to.
- Post early. Most users only go through the comment section once.