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Comment by dang | Hacker News Reader

[stub for offtopicness]

Is it common practice to display fake realtime numbers on the homepage?

let storedNumber = getCookie("countingNumber"); let startNumber = storedNumber !== null ? storedNumber : Math.floor(Math.random() * (10300000 - 10000000 + 1)) + 10000000; let currentNumber = startNumber; function updateNumber() { let randomIncrement = Math.floor(Math.random() * (275 - 101 + 1)) + 101; currentNumber += randomIncrement; element.textContent = formatNumber(currentNumber); setCookie("countingNumber", currentNumber, 7); // Save number in cookie for 7 days } element.textContent = formatNumber(currentNumber); setInterval(updateNumber, 1000);

Ah! That was a leftover from the initial dev version of our website. I've taken it out now. Thank you!

The marketing design approach feels very off to me. You barrage me with an annoying scrolling marquee showing me the most abstract, unrecognizable logos telling me I should trust you because they do. 10+ companies on board feels rather small.

You said AI-driven analysis to identify logs, but I'm already skeptical of AI doing tasks like this, and you obfuscate it further by not actually showing me how it works, just another generic abstract marketing design graphic.

I dunno. It just seems like vaporware-as-a-service from the design vibes.

Early-stage startups often have websites that are little more than landing pages. That's because a full commercial website isn't in their critical path yet—first they need to build their product and attract early users, who don't typically come in through general web traffic.

That's one reason why Launch HNs usually include a demo video. That's the link you should be clicking on if you want to see these guys' product. If you do that, you'll see that it isn't vaporware.

We also advise startups doing Launch HNs to provide a link for users to try the product (preferably without a signup gate, but that's not always doable). There's such a link in the text above as well.

I suppose one way to avoid complaints about stub websites would be not to link to them at all—but then other comments would say "why would I trust you, you don't even have a website"!

Edit: I've replaced https://runsift.com/ with https://app.trysift.dev/docs in the text above. Perhaps that will help.

I want to jump in here and post this Launch HN form [0]. Obviously do not submit it if you are not a YC startup, but the questions on there are very helpful in terms of thinking about how to post about your startup on HN and elsewhere.

[0] https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1pRMkNiD-FKjYL-La5JWMwwrcWsp...

There's also https://news.ycombinator.com/yli.html, which is the guide for YC startups who want to launch on Hacker News. The formal mechanism is YC-only but the principles apply more broadly.

I'm not in YC, but I want to launch my startup here as it's relevant to the audience. Can I go through a process like this to coordinate with you for a launch, or should we just follow the guidelines, make a submission and hope for the best?

You would have to do a “Show HN”, the YC launch (post to the front page) is only for YC startups. You can certainly try and go through the process to do a “Launch HN” - but it would start with applying to YC.

Apart from show vs launch I think following the guidelines and hoping for the best is the norm. Launch HN is nice to get a one-time boost but it doesn’t confer any long-term special treatment on your post afaict.

What's not recognizable about Duck, Square, Triangle, Asterisk, C, two different cubes, and the letter 'n'?

These, coupled with the random number generator to claim how many logs they're processing makes me wonder if the entire product is just AI generated slop.

Hey, maybe you can have a better hiring practice than datadog with a 5 question test where if you get a single answer wrong in even the smallest of ways you get disqualified from getting a job with them for 6 months.

I'm guessing they lost a wealth of great talent due to this test on how to support a platform that they give to fresh off the street applicants rather than having even a modicum of training about their product. They want you to study it for free, probably as a marketing tactic - but also so they don't have to pay to train employees. it's great like cancer.

Disclaimer: I have never applied to a role with datadog, nor interviewed with them. Just had multiple friends complete the process with mixed results. Seems like you need to put in ~two full weeks of self directed study to pass their on site interview 'exam' where they don't tell you about the exam being 100% or fail (but it is!)

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