How My First Hacker News Launch Went (And What I Did About It)
Source: Dev.to
The product: DDL to Data, a tool that generates realistic test data from SQL schemas. No more copying production data or maintaining brittle seed scripts.
The Launch
Submitted a Show HN post on a Tuesday morning. Within an hour I noticed something was wrong: I could see my post when logged in, but it was invisible in incognito mode and on mobile. The post had been soft‑killed, likely because my account was new and my username matched my product name.
I emailed the HN mods (hn@ycombinator.com), explained the situation honestly, and asked them to review it. They restored it within a few hours.
The Results
Once live, the post climbed to #8 on the front page. Over the next 24 hours:
- ~1,000 visitors
- 425 people tried the demo
- 382 completed it (90 % completion rate)
- 3 sign‑ups
- 0 purchases
What Went Wrong
The demo worked and people were interested, but almost nobody converted. The numbers showed a clear problem: users tried it, saw it worked, and left. Issues identified:
- Pricing was too high
- Free tier was too limited
- Landing page was too wordy
I also posted on r/SideProject and received harsh, non‑actionable criticism (“Nobody will use this,” “It sucks”). Meanwhile, someone shared the link in a Microsoft Teams chat and a VC reached out (potentially sketchy, but still a signal of interest).
What I Changed
I took every piece of real feedback and rebuilt:
- Better CTA – clearer path from demo to sign‑up
- Added the most requested feature – Story Mode, AI‑generated coherent data
- Lowered the prices – aligned with competitors
- Increased the limits – free tier now actually useful
- Shortened the copy – less explaining, more showing
What I Learned
- HN mods are reasonable – if your post gets killed, email them politely.
- High demo completion + low sign‑up = conversion problem, not product problem.
- Reddit negativity without specifics isn’t feedback.
- 1,000 visitors means nothing if your funnel is broken.
- Launch is just the beginning – iteration is the actual work.
What’s Next
Relaunching on Product Hunt, continuing to write about the problem, and talking to anyone who will listen. The product is better now. Time to see if the market agrees.
Want to try it? Generate test data from your SQL schema →