I wouldn't know an answer to it, but it would indicate to what extent the wisdom of the HN crowd is a wisdom one should follow.<p>Edit: I'm listing projects already talked about in the link of OP for convenience.<p>Bitcoin first time: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=463793" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=463793</a><p>Bitcoin second time: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=599852" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=599852</a><p>Redis: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=494649" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=494649</a><p>Summarizing from other comments (yep, I'm bored):<p>ReactJS: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5789055" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5789055</a><p>AirBnB: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=426120" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=426120</a><p>DuckDuckGo (arguably): <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=460877" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=460877</a><p>Dropbox (seems to be received quite well? Hmm...): <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863</a><p>Researched but turned out to have good responses:<p>Github: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=124553" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=124553</a> -- query: <a href="https://hn.algolia.com/?query=github&sort=byDate&prefix&page=8&dateRange=custom&type=story&dateStart=1170288000&dateEnd=1234483200" rel="nofollow">https://hn.algolia.com/?query=github&sort=byDate&prefix&page...</a>
HN is about as far from representative of the "typical user" as you can get. No reason you should think that the opinion of people here means much with regards to any specific project or idea.
I dont know about HN but I remember CmdrTaco's famous review of first iPod on its release in 2001: "No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame."<p>For those who don't know, CmdrTaco is the creator of Slashdot, the previous HN.
On just a small side note to remind our selves: Projects that didn't receive well in HN doesn't necessarily mean that HN didn't find it promising/useful or ignored it. It could have been posted at times when participation is low (e.g midnight), for example, so nobody actually saw it. Or people simply just forgot to upvote it, and it went unnoticed in the flood of too many other submissions.<p>I remember that I posted an article that I wrote to HN someday, and it got only 10 votes. Just a day later, some other guy posted MY article and got around 320 votes. I think it's just luck sometimes.
Define "success" and "didn't receive well in HN".<p>I'd argue most of the most interesting projects I've ever seen are actually not successful. AKA they were received well, but weren't successful.<p>I'd argue, in most cases, the least well received are actually solving problems and not "cool". Take an enterprise product that automates some process, wont be well received, but may be worth billions.
I'd guess the majority of them weren't initially received well. It seems it's kind of characteristic of truly good & innovative ideas that they at first seem like terrible ideas to the majority of people (as once noted by Paul Graham / Sam Altman or some other famous entrepreneur, can't remember who exactly).
It may have been a reddit thread, but I remember saying that GitHub seemed like a terrible idea and I had no idea how it could be a viable business. Honestly, I'm still not sure why anyone pays them for their enterprise services.
Gosh, that’s some awkward phrasing. “Popular projects that weren’t well-received by HN” would sound much less jarring. To see “received” being used in the active voice is far too royal.