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I’m opposite. Of the ~5 times I got cold emailed based on my HN profile it was someone asking me if I’d be interested in a product of their startup.
by ivalm 5y ago
I’m opposite. Of the ~5 times I got cold emailed based on my HN profile it was someone asking me if I’d be interested in a product of their startup.
- 0des 5y agoWere the products somewhat relevant to your interests?
- paxys 5y agoWhy is that bad? This is a startup forum at the end of the day.
- vimy 5y agoIt doesn’t feel like a startup forum anymore. When is the last time you’ve seen a post about improving a landing page? It’s more of a general tech forum now.
- Kye 5y agoIt was always an "anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity" forum (at least since I was first aware of it), but it grew out of a startup incubator, so the early focus was inevitable.
- mattmanser 5y agoNo, I would also say that it definitely used to be far more focused on starting a tech startup, with tech as a sideline, now it's the opposite. I feel the shift started happening around the time product hunt got popular, so a couple of years before you joined.
- Kye 5y agoYou repeated what I said with different words. We're in agreement. And my original account was from 2010. I lurked long before that.
- Fuzzwah 5y agoTwo days ago.... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27988065 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27988065 But yeah, it got very little comments and they were mostly negative.
- vimy 5y agoOh, I missed that one. But the frontpage used to be full of posts like that.
- 3np 5y agoTo anyone doing this; please stop. Cold-contact unsolicited outreach for sales is spam. It is not appreciated. The only thing worse than adding me to some newsletter are the ones who keep nagging when I don't reply.
- AussieWog93 5y agoI disagree with you there. There's definitely a way to do it right. Copy-pasted templates are never appreciated, but hand-written, personalised outreach that considers the recipient's situation can go down well.
- NetToolKit 5y agoAnd unfortunately, people who hand write personalised outreach don't know if the recipient is like you or the parent poster.
- johnchristopher 5y agoCareful. This is getting into GDPR territory.
- AussieWog93 5y agoIn what way?
- johnchristopher 5y agoArticle 4-11: > Consent of the data subject means any freely given, specific, informed and unambiguous indication of the data subject’s wishes by which he or she, by a statement or by a clear affirmative action, signifies agreement to the processing of personal data relating to him or her. And 6-1: > Processing shall be lawful only if and to the extent that at least one of the following applies: > the data subject has given consent to the processing of his or her personal data for one or more specific purposes; So whether consent is given or not depends on what people would write in their HN bio next to their email.
- crocodiletears 5y agoIt's like Quora's pitches-masquerading-as-answers coming directly to you, I'd believe.
- unixhero 5y agoActually I am here for the brilliant community, comments and the content. Not even 1% of me cares about startups.
- MattGaiser 5y agoI’ve had that happen a few times. At the very least HN outreach is personalized.
- oefrha 5y agoNext up: personalized HN/<insert forum here> outreach as a service.
- stevekemp 5y agoYeah same here. I've received emails saying things like: "I see from your hacker news comments you're interested in scaling startups, our project/product .." Spam.
- eitland 5y agoI was recently contacted about helping shaping an alternative search engine by posting one unusual page. A few mails. They were responsive when I asked questions back. Yes, maybe a sales pitch but I found it interesting. Other than that a few people hqve asked me about lobste.rs invites and I generally give them after looking a few pages back in their comment history to try to verify I don't let in anyone with a trollish or hostile attitude.