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.

Resources