Tom Blomfield@t_blom
I'm going to show this to every founder who refuses to launch early.
broadglow@broadglow
congratulations to the cursor team
9:03 AM · Jun 17, 2026 · 383.1K Views
Hacker News history shows Cursor founder @mntruell launched the AI code editor eight times with little initial traction
Early posts got one point and no comments.
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Sentiment
Users are inspired by Cursor's founder sharing multiple early low-engagement HN launches because it shows the value of shipping small products quickly and iterating on feedback.
Pos
87.0%
Neg
13.0%
68 comments with sentiment.
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eve@eve_bouff
@t_blom impeccable. takes huge amounts of courage and grit to launch and re-launch like that
1dViews 6.6KLikes 51Bookmarks 2
BOOKMARKS6
Thijs@thijsmakes
@marclou @mntruell When dropbox launched on hackernews:
5hViews 3.4KLikes 67Bookmarks 6
LIKES93
Henry Dowling@henrytdowling
@t_blom kinda funny that he was also getting 1 upvote in 2025
1dViews 6.5KLikes 93Bookmarks 1
RETWEETS142
Marc Lou@marclou
.@mntruell launched Cursor 8 times, and nobody cared.
Don't give up.
5hViews 158.2KLikes 4.4KBookmarks 1.1K
REPLIES6
Akos@akoskm
@marclou @mntruell this is why i don’t launch there. i would have taken this guy seriously 😃
4hViews 2.1KLikes 43Bookmarks 4
grzracz@grzracz
@t_blom Going through this literally right now lol https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48574533
23hViews 6.1KLikes 3Bookmarks 6
Raphael Schaad@raphaelschaad
@t_blom 100%
"An AI Email Companion," gotta love it.
And that doesn't even capture the "Cursor for CAD" detour.
1dViews 1.8KLikes 21Bookmarks 3
Marc Lou@marclou
https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=mntruell
5hViews 6.4KLikes 28Bookmarks 1
jack friks@jackfriks
@marclou @mntruell no friking way
5hViews 2.4KLikes 26
jon yale@JonYale
@marclou @mntruell how to reconcile this with move on if it isn't working
4hViews 1.6KLikes 7
Spencer@spencercamp
@t_blom @ycombinator “An AI email companion?” 😂 Dang, this is wild.
1dViews 2.7KLikes 18
Nav Toor@heynavtoor
@t_blom power of shipping early
22hViews 6.6KLikes 1Bookmarks 2
Sei K.@RoseSilicon
@t_blom What does “launching early” mean????? Early relative to what?
23hViews 321Likes 3
Chris Ries@chrisries
@t_blom launch early and often
1dViews 3.1KLikes 5Bookmarks 1
Soleio@soleio
@t_blom Amen.
19hViews 1.2KLikes 3Bookmarks 1
Daniel Johnson@djohnsonxyz
@t_blom The 2022 email companion buried in there is the real lesson. They kept shipping small stuff for years before any of it landed. Most founders quit somewhere around line 4.
1dViews 730Likes 3Bookmarks 1
rbbydotdev@rbbydotdev
@akoskm @marclou @mntruell the new dropbox-isnt-going-to-work comment
3hViews 192Likes 8
Dan Perks@DanPerks
@marclou @mntruell bare in mind cursor looked like this back then, and had ~30 users beta testing via the cursor discord server
3hViews 294Likes 8
Olivier Morissette@oliviersm199
@t_blom iconic and what I'm living through at the moment
1dViews 4.2KBookmarks 1
Mbaziira Ronald@MbaziiraRonn
@akoskm @marclou @mntruell Man 😅
Reminds of Reddit.
4hViews 223Likes 6
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