I did most of my branding by myself (using Sketch), but my family, and a community of students[1] always give me feedback on my projects. I do not have multiple HN profiles (although I have a throwaway account made a while back). However, I do have friends that usually are the first comments on my posts.

Also, while Moon was on Github in 2016, I started playing around with it locally in late 2015 before publishing anything online.

[1] https://feathrd.co