+1000 on this. It took me a long time to realize, but I can either spend my time trying to be a big deal in the tech blogosphere, or try to engage with my actual customers.

If HN users aren't your customer base, then coverage in TC or HN frontpage will do nothing for you. It may stroke your ego, but it won't pad your pocketbook.

That's something I've been wrestling with lately. LiberWriter has started to turn a profit, and I'm wondering if I should copy Balsamiq's transparency / blog posts about early success. In some ways I'd like to, because publicity should help a bit in any case, but getting on HN really isn't going to get us any new customers.

If SEO is a meaningful part of your marketing strategy, then you should invest time in getting links. Linkbait on HN and elsewhere is a good path for this... Though you'd obviously be better served getting links from places where your customers spend their time, that's not always available/easy.

I would say don't do it. I'm in a similar position (profitable company with an interesting back-story) and it seems like a bad idea to start giving out your personal financial details to the world.

But there's probably an interesting middle ground.

What would that be, though? Either you're talking about your company and making some information public, or you aren't. If you're going to go down that route, granted you may not want to reveal everything, but you should probably do enough to get some attention, if that's the point. Otherwise you're just revealing information for no benefit.

I find Rand Fishkin incredible in sharing all the details of SeoMoz. It takes guts to do that. Balsamiq, Bingo Card creator and a few others on HN are transparent when it is not a great deal of money.

(I haven't seen Balsamiq post detailed revenue and their breakup lately.)

I would say do what feels comfortable to you. Most likely, it is to keep revenues etc. secret. Revealing those details might get some eyeballs in the short term but not customers.

I think the distinction is between getting some eyeballs who are easy to convert into customers, like Balsamiq or SEOMoz, and something like BCC, where the publicity is less obviously useful, because no one at HN would buy it. LiberWriter is definitely in the latter category.

100% true. You don't really need tech blog press if your market is not tech blog readers.

Agreed. Just look at the Techcrunch Deadpool and you'll see many examples of companies that have "Featured in Techcrunch, NY Times, etc" in their homepage, yet managed to fail. Winning a popularity contest isn't what it's all about. Boosts your ego, sure, but not necessarily revenue. If you get featured in a publication, great, if not don't fret about it. Maybe <1% of people who find you thru Techcrunch will become loyal customers.