Updated
For developer-tool teamsCustomer research for developer tools, from the threads developers already wrote.
Developers say exactly what they distrust, what they'd pay for and what they use instead, in public, on Hacker News and Reddit. Threadpull pulls a whole thread into one list you can read, sort and hand to your AI.
How do developer-tool teams use Hacker News and Reddit for customer research?
They read the threads where developers and founders already discuss a problem or a launch, and count what comes up: reasons not to install, workarounds people use instead, and where first users come from. In a 131-comment Show HN for a small macOS utility, trust came up in about 18 comments. In an r/Startup_Ideas thread on finding first users, 6 of the 11 people who replied said to talk to a few real users before chasing signups. Threadpull pulls every comment from Hacker News and Reddit into one list.
Six research jobs for a dev-tool team
Map objections before launch
Read a competitor's Show HN and list every reason people gave not to install it.
Show HN · competitor launchesWrite a landing page in their words
Lift the phrases developers use for the problem, not the ones in your pitch deck.
Ask HN · r/webdevFind the workaround you replace
Every "I just use a script for this" is your real competitor. Count them.
r/devops · r/selfhostedShortlist feature requests
"I'd love it if it also…" comments, grouped and counted across threads.
Show HN · product threadsTest an idea before building
Pull the threads where people complain about the problem and see if anyone would pay.
Ask HN · r/programmingRun a launch retro
Pull your own Show HN afterwards and see what landed, what confused and what scared people off.
Your Show HNWhat the Hacker News thread showed
A live Show HN for a small macOS utility, pulled and read for objections.
Show HN: Auto Dismiss Mac OS "Allow <app> to find devices on local networks?"
news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50294506 ↗For your launch: say why it's safe to install (signed, open source, what permissions and why) before you say what it does.
Is this safe to install?
about 18 comments"I have no clue how I would know whether it is without reviewing the source code"HughParry
"Even if they're not malicious, there's no guarantee that they won't become malicious in the future."ASalazarMX
Workarounds people already use
about 8 comments"has mandated the use of Hammerspoon scripts and the like for more than a decade"dingdingdang
Do more: other dialogs too
about 5 comments"I'd LOVE for you to expand it, to also auto-dismiss"crazygringo
What the r/Startup_Ideas thread showed
A Reddit thread where a founder asked how to find the first users for a new app, read comment by comment.
How to launch, market, and get actual first users for a new app without a massive budget?
www.reddit.com/r/Startup_Ideas/comments/1xgux0j/how_to_launch_market_and_get_actual_first_users/ ↗For your launch plan: first users come from conversations, not launch day. Answer questions where your users already are, invite a few people personally, and judge it by who comes back.
Talk to a few real users before chasing signups
about 6 comments"getting a few people to actually use the product and share honest feedback is way more valuable than collecting hundreds of email signups"Swimming_dasa
"id send 20 personal invites in one niche, offer help getting started, and count completed app tasks instead of email signups"Ok_Paint7396
Join communities before promoting
about 5 comments"spend a couple of weeks actually answering questions in the subs where your users hang out."Miserable-Money642
"then join the conversation and learn from them before promoting anything."bluehost
Organic first, ads only after people return
about 4 comments"i would'nt touch ads until you see people coming back to use the app on there own."Miserable-Money642
"If you think you can acquire customers for less money then they will pay you, ads are a good idea."ChristianKl
Advice that was also a pitch
about 3 comments"For context, I've built a platform that helps Saas & AI founders launch, distribute, get first customers"greyzor7
The threads in numbers
"Show HN: Auto Dismiss Mac OS "Allow <app> to find devices on local networks?"" had 131 comments from 88 people when we pulled it on 1 Nov 2026. 110 of them (84%) were replies to other comments, nested up to 8 levels deep, and the median comment was 29 words long. The theme raised most, is this safe to install?, came up in about 18 comments (14% of the thread).
"How to launch, market, and get actual first users for a new app without a massive budget?" had 25 comments from 12 people when we pulled it on 1 Nov 2026. 15 of them (60%) were replies to other comments, nested up to 2 levels deep, and the median comment was 18 words long. The theme raised most, talk to a few real users before chasing signups, came up in about 6 comments (24% of the thread).
How we did this research
- Pulled with Threadpull on 1 Nov 2026: every comment still live, at every reply level, from news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50294506.
- Pulled with Threadpull on 1 Nov 2026: every comment Reddit returned, at every reply level, from reddit.com/r/Startup_Ideas/comments/1xgux0j/how_to_launch_market_and_get_actual_first_users/. Reddit's own count was 47; it also counts comments that were deleted or removed, which can't be pulled.
- Read and grouped into themes. A comment can raise more than one theme, so counts are approximate.
- Every quote on this page is checked word for word against the export, under its author, each time the page is built.
| Hacker News | r/Startup_Ideas | |
|---|---|---|
| Score on the post | 154 | 37 |
| Comments | 131 | 25 |
| Top-level comments | 21 | 10 |
| Replies | 110 (84%) | 15 (60%) |
| People commenting | 88 | 12 |
| Comments by the original poster | – | 12 |
| Deepest reply level | 8 | 2 |
| Median comment length | 29 words | 18 words |
| Comments from the 5 most active people | 26 (20%) | 18 (72%) |
| Theme | Thread | Comments | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Is this safe to install? | Hacker News | about 18 | 14% |
| Workarounds people already use | Hacker News | about 8 | 6% |
| Do more: other dialogs too | Hacker News | about 5 | 4% |
| Talk to a few real users before chasing signups | r/Startup_Ideas | about 6 | 24% |
| Join communities before promoting | r/Startup_Ideas | about 5 | 20% |
| Organic first, ads only after people return | r/Startup_Ideas | about 4 | 16% |
| Advice that was also a pitch | r/Startup_Ideas | about 3 | 12% |
The words they used
How many comments used each word or named each product. Counted from the export each time the page is built; a comment counts once however often it repeats the word. Variants count together, so "self-host" includes "self-hosted" and "self hosting".
The Hacker News thread
| Word or phrase | Comments | Share |
|---|---|---|
| permission | 22 | 17% |
| Apple | 19 | 15% |
| malicious or malware | 10 | 8% |
| local network | 6 | 5% |
| trust | 4 | 3% |
| App Store | 3 | 2% |
| Bluetooth | 3 | 2% |
| Name | Comments | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Chrome | 9 | 7% |
| Windows | 6 | 5% |
| Claude | 5 | 4% |
| Steam | 2 | 2% |
| Spotify | 2 | 2% |
| Adobe | 2 | 2% |
The r/Startup_Ideas thread
| Word or phrase | Comments | Share |
|---|---|---|
| email or sign-ups | 7 | 28% |
| talk or conversation | 7 | 28% |
| feedback | 5 | 20% |
| landing page | 4 | 16% |
| ads or paid | 4 | 16% |
| community | 4 | 16% |
| outreach | 3 | 12% |
| niche | 3 | 12% |
| Name | Comments | Share |
|---|---|---|
| 5 | 20% | |
| Product Hunt | 2 | 8% |
Where the conversation happened
Comments per reply level. The deep chains are often where people disagree, and a skim of the top-level comments misses them.
Reading developer threads well
Why read a competitor's Show HN?
A Show HN is a launch with the objections written down. Commenters say why they wouldn't install it, what they use instead and what's missing, often within hours. Pull one, and you have most of your own launch FAQ before you write it.
How do you find the workaround you compete with?
Search the pulled comments for phrases like "I just use", "a script" or a rival's name, and count them. In the Show HN above, about 8 comments named something people already use, from Hammerspoon scripts to system settings commands. That workaround is the thing your page has to beat.
What did developers want to know before installing?
Where the code comes from and what it can do. Commenters asked how to tell whether a small Homebrew package is malicious without reading the source, and whether a safe tool could turn malicious in a later update. Answer those on your page: link the source, say which permissions it needs and why, and say how releases are signed.
Should you count comments or upvotes?
Count comments, and how many different people make each point. Hacker News hides comment points, and a few people can write a lot: in the Show HN above, the 5 most active people wrote 20% of the comments, and in the Reddit thread the original poster wrote 12 of the 25. A point raised by many different people is a pattern; one raised by one loud person is not.
Where do a new app's first users come from?
Not launch day, going by the r/Startup_Ideas thread above. Commenters said to send a handful of personal invites, answer questions in the communities where users already are before posting a link, and hold off on ads until people come back on their own.
Can you trust advice in founder threads?
Read it with the source in mind. In the r/Startup_Ideas thread above, 3 replies pointed to a launch or alert tool, and one writer said they'd built theirs. Count how many different people give the same advice before you act on it.
Where developers talk
Threads worth pulling, by what you're trying to learn.
- Show HNLaunch reactions: trust, pricing, "how is this different from…"
- Ask HN"What do you use for…" threads: the tools you compete with
- r/programmingBroad opinions on languages, tools and practices
- r/webdevFront-end and full-stack pain, in plain words
- r/devopsOps tooling, incidents and the scripts that replace products
- r/selfhostedWhy people won't pay for SaaS, and what they'd pay for
How to find threads like these
Searches that turn up the threads worth pulling. Open one, then pull it with Threadpull.
| Search | Where | What it finds |
|---|---|---|
"Show HN" plus your category | hn.algolia.com | Competitor launches, with reasons not to install |
"I just use" plus the problem | hn.algolia.com or Google | The scripts and workarounds you actually compete with |
site:reddit.com/r/selfhosted "alternative to" | Why people won't pay, and what they'd pay for | |
site:reddit.com/r/devops "what do you use for" | Tool stacks, named and counted |
Threads worth pulling next
Comment counts as of 2 Nov 2026.
- I switched from VSCode to ZedWhy developers switch editors, and what keeps them.
- Show HN: Clawk – Give coding agents a disposable Linux VM, not your laptopTrust and safety questions about a dev tool that runs code.
- Show HN: Semble – Code search for agents that uses 98% fewer tokens than grepHow developers react to a benchmark claim.
- Show HN: WhatCable, a tiny menu bar app for inspecting USB-C cablesA small Mac utility launch, like the one above.
- Ask HN: What is your (AI) dev tech stack / workflow?Tools named and counted by developers themselves.
The prompt for dev-tool threads
Pull a thread, choose Send to AI, and use this to get objections, workarounds and requests in one pass.
These are every comment from a developer thread about a tool. 1. List each reason people give not to install, trust or pay for it, with a count. 2. List the workarounds and alternatives they mention. 3. List the features they ask for. 4. Quote the five most specific sentences, word for word. 5. Suggest a headline and three trust points for our landing page.
Developer tools FAQ
Does it work on Hacker News and Reddit?
Yes. Reddit threads work without an account. Hacker News threads and Reddit profiles need a free account.
Can I pull a competitor's launch thread?
Any public thread you can open, you can pull. Threadpull only reads; it never posts, votes or messages anyone.
How many threads should I read?
Three to five threads on the same problem usually show the pattern. A free account keeps every pull in History so you can compare them.