I can almost 100% guarantee you that having an automatic slider killed a lot of upvotes for you. I'm not trying to be a dick, I've actually seen this over an over, and I experience it as a user - if I see a Show HN, I'm upvoting unless I have a reason not to. I despite automatic sliders, and yours is particularly egregious. Long term, it's a tiny mistake in what seems to be an otherwise interesting project, so I'd do a way with it immediately to avoid the distraction.
Don’t take not making the front page on HN as product validity as 99% of posters here are not the target market of 100% of the ‘Show HN’ posts here.<p>btw: You summed it up pretty nice in your blog post!
I am interested what happens when you don't initially make it to the front page, but then your postmortem does, and it links you to your original project. What is the conversion % of people who then check it out?
Aside from just having a good article/project, it takes good timing, good luck, and sometimes some good upvotes from friends to make the front page. I've had a few things which I was sure would take off not make the front page, including a combined ruby and rails security vulnerability, as well as a project with plenty of publicity and 50,000+ views on XDA.
Upvoted for the irony!<p>My 1st two start-ups made the front-page.<p>My current and I think best yet hasn't had the same good fortune.<p>good luck to you!
Your landing page is not the thing. And you get the right feedback to tell you that: no votes. So why complain about it instead of working on it? You seem to have spent a lot of time on your tool. Landing page is were you have to work on now!