I just want to point out that the upvoted by friends part is against Hacker News policy and not encouraged and I personally consider them as very unethical:

> Can I ask people to upvote my submission?

> No. Users should vote for a story because it's intellectually interesting, not because someone is promoting it.

> When the software detects a voting ring, it penalizes the post. Accounts that vote like this eventually get their votes ignored.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html