Where to say it
The same angle, translated for each platform’s native tongue. A channel guide.
5 MIN READ
One angle, many dialects. The message stays constant; the format bends to each platform’s culture. Here’s the translation table, in rough order of leverage for a solo builder.
X / Twitter — the daily channel
The only channel that rewards showing up repeatedly with the same idea. Founder-voice outperforms brand-voice; build-in-public beats press-release. One link maximum, no hashtags, and the first sentence is 90% of the result. This is where your nine angles get tested — cheaply, daily, with instant scoreboard.
Product Hunt — the one-shot
You get one good launch per product. The tagline is your one-liner; the gallery sells the outcome; and the founder comment is the highest-leverage slot on the page — tell the origin story, not the feature list. Show up in the comments all day. Hunters can smell an abandoned launch by 9am.
Hacker News — the honesty test
“Show HN” has a native tongue: technical, modest, specific. Marketing voice gets flagged; engineering honesty gets discussed. Lead with what was hard to build, admit what doesn’t work yet, and answer every comment like a peer, because they are. A good HN thread outranks your homepage on Google for years.
Reddit — value first, link last
Every subreddit is a country with border control. Read the rules, contribute before you post, and frame the post as the problem and what you learned — with the product mentioned the way you’d mention it to a friend. The self-promotion that survives is the kind that would be a good post even with the link removed.
Your README — the landing page that gets read
For anything developer-facing, the README outdraws your website. Same rules as a landing page: one-liner first, GIF of the outcome second, install third, philosophy last. A README that reads like a pitch is not selling out — it’s respecting the reader’s time.
Directories and newsletters — the long tail
Submit everywhere once: the alternative-to sites, the awesome-lists, the niche newsletters. Each is small. Together they’re a steady drip of high-intent visitors, and every listing is a backlink your future SEO will thank you for. One afternoon, lasting yield.
The thread through all of it: decide the angle once, then translate. The product that seems omnipresent isn’t doing more thinking. It’s doing more shipping of the same thought.