🚀 Show HN Early-Stage Startup & Tech Product Hunter

Real-time deal-sourcing intelligence on newly launched tech startups, developer tools, AI apps, and indie hacker projects from Hacker News (Show HN). Built for venture capital scouts, angel investors, tech journalists, and early-adopter developers.

---

💡 Why Choose This Actor?

The world's most valuable tech companies (Dropbox, Stripe, Reddit, Docker) posted their first public alpha versions on Hacker News Show HN. Commercial startup databases charge prohibitive monthly retainers:

Feature / Metric	Commercial Deal Sourcing (PitchBook / Crunchbase Pro)	Manual HN Refreshing	Show HN Early-Stage Product Hunter
Monthly Pricing	$300 – $1,200 / month (Annual lock-in)	$0 but hours of non-stop manual refreshing	Pay-Per-Event ($0.0050 / product) (No recurring fee)
Data Freshness	Delayed until incorporation / funding filing	Real-time	Instant real-time sync with newly posted Show HN threads
Founder Identification	Often hidden behind paywalls	Manual profile lookup	Direct founder username, product domain, & thread links
Traction Scoring	Proprietary algorithm	Guesswork	Automated Community Traction Tier (Viral / High Interest)
Free Trial	Sales call mandatory	None	$5.00 Free Trial Credit (Up to 1,000 product records free)

---

🎯 Target Audiences & Use Cases

1. Angel Investors & Micro-VC Funds:
   • Discover pre-seed founders before they begin fundraising.
   • Analyze early founder feedback and technical discussions in real time.
2. Tech Journalists & Newsletter Curators:
   • Source breakout products and underground tech trends for publication.
3. B2B Growth & Sales Teams:
   • Find newly launched startups that need cloud infra, payment gateways, or developer tools.
4. Indie Hackers & Founders:
   • Monitor competitive launches in your market vertical.

---

📥 Input Parameters

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
searchQuery	String	""	Optional keyword filter (e.g., "ai", "saas", "database", "security").
minPoints	Integer	1	Minimum upvote threshold (e.g. 30 for trending launches).
minComments	Integer	0	Minimum community discussion comment threshold.
maxItems	Integer	50	Maximum number of startup launches to collect (1 to 300).

---

📤 Output Data Format (JSON Sample)

[
  {
    "story_id": 41582910,
    "title": "Show HN: Supabase Vector Studio – Visual DB Inspector for Embeddings",
    "product_name": "Supabase Vector Studio",
    "founder_username": "tech_alchemist",
    "points": 142,
    "num_comments": 48,
    "product_url": "https://vector-studio.dev",
    "product_domain": "vector-studio.dev",
    "hn_discussion_url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41582910",
    "traction_tier": "🔥 Viral Tech Launch",
    "created_at": "2026-09-08T04:12:00Z",
    "scraped_at": "2026-09-08T06:00:00+00:00"
  }
]

---

🐍 1-Click Python Integration

from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize client with your Apify API Token
client = ApifyClient("YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN")

# Run Show HN Early-Stage Product Hunter
run = client.actor("robinworld/show-hn-early-stage-product-hunter").call(
    run_input={
        "searchQuery": "ai",
        "minPoints": 10,
        "maxItems": 20
    }
)

# Fetch latest breakout startup launches
for product in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(f"🚀 [{product['traction_tier']}] {product['product_name']} (Points: {product['points']})")
    print(f"   Founder: @{product['founder_username']} | Site: {product['product_url']}")
    print(f"   Discussion: {product['hn_discussion_url']}")

---

❓ Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Q: How fast are newly launched products indexed?

Items are indexed within 60 seconds of submission to Hacker News.

Q: Does this require any paid proxy or API key?

No! It connects directly to Hacker News's public high-speed Algolia search cluster with zero proxy costs.