3.9 KiB
One-shot launch: Show HN + r/InternetIsBeautiful
Goal: NOT the day-one spike (HN is US-skewed for an England-only tool; outbound links are nofollow). The real payoff is 2–5 aggregator/reblog backlinks that start your domain-authority clock, plus 1–3 UK referral relationships. Treat it as a backlink seed, then walk away.
Rules of engagement
- Post Tue–Thu, ~14:00–17:00 UK (≈9–12am US Eastern). One platform each, same week.
- The link target is a cheaper-twin STORY page (e.g.
{{FLAGSHIP_TWIN_PAGE_URL}}), never the cold map or a bare filter UI. - Be present ~2–3h to answer data-method questions, then stop.
- Post the maker comment first, immediately after submitting.
- Both qualify only because the map has no sign-up wall; keep it that way for launch day.
Show HN
Title (HN dislikes hype; lead with the mechanism + "open data"):
Show HN: Perfect Postcode, ranking every England postcode by what £1 of housing buys
Alternatives if you want to A/B in your head:
Show HN: I joined Land Registry, EPC, Ofsted and crime data to find England's "cheaper twin" postcodesShow HN: A no-signup map that ranks all of England by price per m², schools, commute and crime
Maker comment (post as the first comment):
Maker here. Perfect Postcode ranks every postcode in England by what each £ actually buys
(£ per m² of floor space, Ofsted school catchments, commute time, crime, broadband, noise)
instead of by area reputation. It's a single cross-join of official open data (HM Land Registry
price-paid, EPC floor areas, Ofsted, DfT, ONS, Police.uk) over ~13M sales.
The thing I find most fun: "cheaper twins", pairs of adjacent postcodes that share a station,
a school catchment and a build era but sell tens of thousands apart because one name got bid up.
Example: {{FLAGSHIP_TWIN_ONE_LINER e.g. "Angel N1 vs Holloway N7: same line, overlapping
catchment, ~30% less per m²"}}.
No sign-up, no card. The map's free to explore: {{FLAGSHIP_TWIN_PAGE_URL}}
Honest caveats: England only for now (Scotland/Wales need different source datasets); EPC floor-area
coverage is sparse before 2012 so I exclude pre-2012-only properties from the £/m² figures; "estimated"
prices are comparison estimates, not valuations. Happy to go into the £/m² derivation, postcode-boundary
handling or the EPC gaps. Ask away.
Be ready for these HN questions (have a one-paragraph answer each):
- How is £/m² derived, and how do you handle properties with no recorded floor area?
- Postcode vs postcode-sector boundaries: what granularity are the "twins" at?
- What's the business model? (Answer plainly: free map, one-time lifetime unlock for >3 filters, no subscription. Do NOT lead with this.)
- Data licensing. (OGL v3.0 in aggregate; you never expose address-level rows.)
r/InternetIsBeautiful
Read the subreddit rules the day you post (they change). It must read as a genuinely interesting thing to explore, not an ad; the no-signup map is what makes it allowed.
Title (their format is a plain description of the site):
Every postcode in England, ranked by price-per-m², schools, commute and crime (no signup)
First comment (shorter, less "founder", more "here's a cool thing"):
Built this from official open data (Land Registry sold prices + EPC floor areas + Ofsted + DfT +
Police.uk). The bit people seem to like is "cheaper twins": two postcodes next to each other with the
same station and school catchment, priced thousands apart just because of the name. England-only for
now. No account needed; link goes straight to a worked example you can poke at.
After the launch (same day, 10 minutes)
- Note every domain that reblogs/aggregates the HN post (e.g. hckrnews, Hacker News Daily, niche newsletters). Those are your seed backlinks; log them in your metrics sheet.
- Do not repost to other subreddits in a blast. One IIB post, done.