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Meta-comment: As a founder and engineer, I used to give a lot of shit to Social Media as a growth channel. GitLab staff are "on point" by commenting on anythin

by tyre 10y ago

Meta-comment: As a founder and engineer, I used to give a lot of shit to Social Media as a growth channel. GitLab staff are "on point" by commenting on anything relevant to their industry (code creation/management) where their target customers are (HN). To other founders, this is what good marketing looks like.

sytse 10y ago
Thanks Chris. It is a tricky balance not being too noisy (I understand the sentiment of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12502468 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12502468 ) but I tried to add to the conversation by by sharing our thoughts about the project <=> repo dilemma.
- hitekker 10y ago
  A willingness to engage with the community as often and as effectively as you guys have is surely not commonplace. Hope you can keep it up! :)
- marklgr 10y ago
  I thought HN frowned on metacomments, and here it goes, talking about GitLab again, in a Github topic...
  - dijit 10y ago
    I'm in no way affiliated with gitlab, but I do like the product. But the facts are such: 1) GitLab is a YCombinator incubated company. 2) GitLab and GitHub are direct competitors 3) It's almost always relevant to the discussion, in this case; "How could it be done differently, how /has/ it been done differently" In this case I think it's fair to bring up the direct comparison of github and gitlab. The only thing I would say could improve the situation was having github representation on here too.
    - TeMPOraL 10y ago
      I enjoy threads like these; this is how healthy competition looks like. GitLab peoples' comments are relevant, and their discuss technical issues and merits of their solution, instead of comparing to GitHub ("we're better than the competitor!"). If this is how all marketing would always look like, I wouldn't hate it like I now do.
deleted 10y ago
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tootie 10y ago
If your product targets developers, commenting on HN seems like a pretty high value channel compared to something like facebook.
eropple 10y ago
YMMV, but I find sytse so hugely overbearing that I actively don't want to use GitLab because I don't want to encourage what I see as tacky, bad behavior. He and other GitLab staff can do as they like, but I'm not rewarding it.
- mbrock 10y ago
  I don't have a strong opinion but my gut feeling is that the GitLab staff is always asking HN what to do, which kind of makes me question the integrity of the company's own ability to decide. Of course it fits with the model of an open source company, but it still makes me skeptical intuitively. (I say this less as a criticism and more as feedback on how one random HN user perceives their presence.)
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - dijit 10y ago
    Thats fair comment, but how do you define the middle ground between sitting in an ivory tower and wondering what the next feature should be, between asking people who actually use your product in ways you wouldn't expect? I release computer games, which are developed largely in secret and when they hit the market after 4-7 years people find all kinds of warts and issues that we never even thought of. GitLab seems to be of the idea, "ask people what they need, make small incremental movements into making that happen and release those increments often so that people don't get jarred by changes" I can support that, and I don't think it bears negatively on their integrity.
    - mbrock 10y ago
      I'm not sure. Maybe I would try to integrate the product suggestions into the product more, along with just reaching out to users directly and generally conducting the product in a typical open source fashion. What bugs me a bit is mostly the constant presence on the Hacker News forum, with this somewhat aimlessly customer-pleasing tone: "What can we do better? How can we improve your experience?" etc. It seems like a premeditated PR/marketing strategy, which might be working well, but it's still off-putting to me.

by tyre 10y ago

sytse 10y ago

Thanks Chris. It is a tricky balance not being too noisy (I understand the sentiment of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12502468 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12502468 ) but I tried to add to the conversation by by sharing our thoughts about the project <=> repo dilemma.

hitekker 10y ago
A willingness to engage with the community as often and as effectively as you guys have is surely not commonplace. Hope you can keep it up! :)
marklgr 10y ago
I thought HN frowned on metacomments, and here it goes, talking about GitLab again, in a Github topic...
- dijit 10y ago
  I'm in no way affiliated with gitlab, but I do like the product. But the facts are such: 1) GitLab is a YCombinator incubated company. 2) GitLab and GitHub are direct competitors 3) It's almost always relevant to the discussion, in this case; "How could it be done differently, how /has/ it been done differently" In this case I think it's fair to bring up the direct comparison of github and gitlab. The only thing I would say could improve the situation was having github representation on here too.
  - TeMPOraL 10y ago
    I enjoy threads like these; this is how healthy competition looks like. GitLab peoples' comments are relevant, and their discuss technical issues and merits of their solution, instead of comparing to GitHub ("we're better than the competitor!"). If this is how all marketing would always look like, I wouldn't hate it like I now do.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

tootie 10y ago

If your product targets developers, commenting on HN seems like a pretty high value channel compared to something like facebook.

eropple 10y ago

YMMV, but I find sytse so hugely overbearing that I actively don't want to use GitLab because I don't want to encourage what I see as tacky, bad behavior. He and other GitLab staff can do as they like, but I'm not rewarding it.

mbrock 10y ago
I don't have a strong opinion but my gut feeling is that the GitLab staff is always asking HN what to do, which kind of makes me question the integrity of the company's own ability to decide. Of course it fits with the model of an open source company, but it still makes me skeptical intuitively. (I say this less as a criticism and more as feedback on how one random HN user perceives their presence.)
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- dijit 10y ago
  Thats fair comment, but how do you define the middle ground between sitting in an ivory tower and wondering what the next feature should be, between asking people who actually use your product in ways you wouldn't expect? I release computer games, which are developed largely in secret and when they hit the market after 4-7 years people find all kinds of warts and issues that we never even thought of. GitLab seems to be of the idea, "ask people what they need, make small incremental movements into making that happen and release those increments often so that people don't get jarred by changes" I can support that, and I don't think it bears negatively on their integrity.
  - mbrock 10y ago
    I'm not sure. Maybe I would try to integrate the product suggestions into the product more, along with just reaching out to users directly and generally conducting the product in a typical open source fashion. What bugs me a bit is mostly the constant presence on the Hacker News forum, with this somewhat aimlessly customer-pleasing tone: "What can we do better? How can we improve your experience?" etc. It seems like a premeditated PR/marketing strategy, which might be working well, but it's still off-putting to me.