Comment by theamk

You are focusing on technical details too much, I don't think any of the initial Facebook users cared if it was php or not, they cared about what they saw on the screen.

While presentation definitely matters, the product itself has to be actually interesting (especially on HN). For example, current HN's top post is about Anthropic - and I don't even know what their stack looks like!

On the other side, if the product's is Yet Another PHP Framework then your target audience is (1) PHP developers who are (2) unsatisfied with existing frameworks they know and (3) willing to spend hours to try the unknown thing. This is a pretty narrow category.