Top all-time · #309
Nathan Barry
Personal blog · nathanbarry.com · on HN as nathanbarrydesignstartups
Nathan Barry's personal blog at nathanbarry.com covers design and startups. Since 2010, 163 different Hacker News readers have linked it 353 times, most often “Authority: a step-by-step guide to making a living from self-publishing”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-29, and you can follow it by feed.
Often recommended · 17 of 40 sampled comments recommend it?
Why HN links it
HN readers link his ebook Authority and his design and indie-business posts, mostly to recommend them as resources on self-publishing, product design and bootstrapping.
- Recommended for · 17 comments
- Called articulate, excellent, great, awesome and practical; sales-page copy praised for its focus.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 40 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Design, Business, Life
Most-linked posts?
- Authority: a step-by-step guide to making a living from self-publishing16 people · 18 mentions · first linked 2013-04-18
- The ladders of wealth creation: a step-by-step roadmap to building wealth9 people · 11 mentions · first linked 2019-12-04
- Show HN: Designing Web Applications9 people · 10 mentions · first linked 2012-12-12
- The App Design Handbook (ebook)7 people · 9 mentions · first linked 2012-07-26
- /7 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2013-02-25
- Authority4 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2013-05-21
- Authority Case Studies: $30k in sales from first-time authors4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2013-10-23
- Growing ConvertKit to $30,000 in Monthly Recurring Revenue3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2015-10-15
- On Design Approval and Intentional Flaws3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2013-02-12
- Renaming ConvertKit3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2020-08-04
What Hacker News says?
My concern with the approach is that it doesn't seem very lean. An idea that a developer has kicking around isn't necessarily one that has a market. I'd suggest getting involved early on the product development side and getting out and talking to customers. Articulated market needs are much more valuable than just an idea... Nathan Barry had a nice post on HN the other day having to do with this: http://nathanbarry.…
Comment linking /finding-ideas-project/
on “Proposition HN: I will pay $8000 for you to build your side-project/MVP”Submitted How I Made $19,000 on the App Store While Learning to Code as a story · 498 points
HN discussionHere are a couple of awesome examples: Affiliate Marketer https://www.smartpassiveincome.com/ Patt is awesome, he actually shares his monthly income and expense statements. Started solo and now he hired a bunch of people. Nathan Barry ( http://nathanbarry.com/ ) the guy who started convertKit https://convertkit.com/
Comment linking /
on “Ask HN: What are some examples of successful single-person businesses?”Submitted One Year After Quitting My Job as a story · 407 points
HN discussionThe most important thing you can do to increase your odds of success when releasing a technical book is to have multiple pricing tiers, adding additional content so you give people the option to pay you more than $30 or whatever you are charging for just the book. I released a book in May 2016 teaching PHP programmers how to refactor code with lots of loops and conditionals into collection pipelines. So far it's mad…
Comment linking /authority/
on “How I Made $70k Self-Publishing a Book about Ruby on Rails”Submitted From Losing Money to a Profit Margin in 5 Months as a story · 252 points
HN discussionHere's a direct link to Nathan Barry's book "Authority" https://nathanbarry.com/authority/
Comment linking /authority/
on “The Tools I Use to Write Books”Submitted Enough as a story · 223 points
HN discussionLooks like a pretty rote implementation of Authority[0], but with a more modern UI. I wish we used PostgreSQL at my day job, this looks pretty interesting! I particularly like the idea of including the Docker container at the highest price point. Edit: Looks like email sign ups are through ConvertKit, which is Nathan's company. Definitely Authority! [0] http://nathanbarry.com/authority/
Comment linking /authority/
on “Mastering PostgreSQL in Application Development”Submitted Two years after quitting my job: 2013 in review as a story · 169 points
HN discussion> did they self-publish or went with some known publisher? My former boss self-published a book on Leanpub. For the "known publisher", I'm a little acquainted with the author of "Docker High Performance" (Packt). For the leanpub one, it was organically easy to get the word out through local meetups and clients. Packt reached out to the "Docker High Performance" guy, he reviewed a few books for them then they emailed…
Comment linking /designing-web-applications-2nd-edition/
on “Ask HN: Best passive income method for a solo developer?”Submitted Solving the cash problems from self-funding rapid growth as a story · 138 points
HN discussionYes, very worth it. Checkout this post: http://nathanbarry.com/behind-the-scenes/
Comment linking /behind-the-scenes/
on “One Year After Quitting My Job”Submitted Step-By-Step Landing Page Copywriting as a story · 123 points
HN discussionConvertKit | Boise, ID | Full-Time | REMOTE only | CEST-PST timezones preferred ConvertKit is an email marketing platform that helps creators earn a living online. Read our full reason for existing here: https://convertkit.com/mission/ Here's why you should seriously consider working at ConvertKit: 1. We're bootstrapped. We're not on the VC train. We like growth and are growing, but answering to VCs, investors, and…
Comment linking /product-secrets/
on “Ask HN: Who is hiring? (March 2019)”Submitted Finding Ideas For Your Next Project as a story · 118 points
HN discussionCheck out Nathan Barry's book Designing Web Applications: http://nathanbarry.com/webapps/ It's accessible, not too long, and yet still packed with good info on the basics of ui design and user experience.
Comment linking /webapps/
on “Ask HN: Good books or articles on UI design?”Submitted How to generate more revenue from your web application today as a story · 114 points
HN discussionBut does it really need to be said? Most utterances are not unique; ideas and insights can be found with a simple Google search. For example, there was a recent screening of "Hidden Figures": http://www.forbes.com/sites/katieelizabeth1/2017/01/10/silic... . Maybe it's what this post refers to, maybe not. But reading similar articles for a year would produce a set of insights about Silicon Valley, just as being at Y…
Comment linking /ignore/
on “The Sound of Silence”Submitted $26,679 in 24 hours: Stats from my latest book launch as a story · 110 points
HN discussion(post author here): The team did not have equity but I paid out substantial bonuses voluntarily to all employees. There's a lot of work to be done on how to incentivize employees in bootstrapped startups tbh. Nathan Barry has some good posts on the topic but I don't think it's a problem with any best practices yet: https://nathanbarry.com/profit-sharing/ https://nathanbarry.com/equity/
Comment linking /equity/
on “Selling My Bootstrapped SaaS Business (2017)”Submitted Starting The Web App Challenge: From Zero to $5,000/month In 6 Months as a story · 108 points
HN discussionPre-announced and got people to sign up to my mailing list in return they got chapter 1 and the table of contents early. I write a weekly email about side projects and building products so a lot of my early traffic came from that. We did exactly the same thing when we launched Perch, and that launch day paid back in sales everything we had spent on the product to get it to launch (not our time but actual cash outlay…
Comment linking /authority/
on “What was your best passive income in 2014?”Submitted Show HN: Designing Web Applications as a story · 105 points
HN discussionCheckout Nathan Barry's Authority: http://nathanbarry.com/authority/ I know a couple different people that swear by it.
Comment linking /authority/
on “What was your best passive income in 2014?”Submitted $6,000+ of app design ebook sales today as a story · 91 points
HN discussionI make between $1,500 and $2,500 (used to be higher) on the App Store from two iOS apps (called OneVoice and Fluent). The rest of my income comes from design consulting. Right now I am working on a new book that launches on Tuesday about designing iOS applications. If you are interested in iOS apps you should check it out: http://nathanbarry.com/inside-app-design-handbook
Comment linking /inside-app-design-handbook
on “Ask HN: How much recurring income do you generate, and from what?”Submitted The Process of Wireframing a Web App as a story · 86 points
HN discussionThat is one of them! :) To be honest, I bought "Authority" but never got around to reading it - I am not an ebook author myself so just put it aside until one day I decide to write a book. The other books of his that I found very useful (and inspirational) are "The App Design Handbook" and "Designing Web Applications". They are here: http://nathanbarry.com/books/
Comment linking /books/
on “ConvertKit: How Nathan Barry Bootstrapped an Email Marketing Business”Submitted How to use Photoshop to design interfaces as a story · 84 points
HN discussion
