Create a founder digest and leads from Hacker News with GPT-4o and Gmail
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Rahul Joshi
Description
📊 Description
Automate daily founder intelligence from Hacker News without manual monitoring. This workflow scans Hacker News discussions (Show HN, launches, AI, startups, SaaS), filters out noise and non-discussion pages, and extracts only high-signal threads. AI then converts these discussions into a concise, founder-ready daily digest highlighting key trends, why they matter, and practical actions. The digest is delivered via email, while structured insights are logged to Google Sheets for long-term tracking and analysis.
⚠️ Deployment Disclaimer
This template is designed for self-hosted n8n installations only.
It relies on external MCP tools and custom AI orchestration that are not supported on n8n Cloud.
🔄 What This Template Does
1️⃣ Runs automatically on a daily schedule ⏰
2️⃣ Searches Hacker News discussions via Google using SerpAPI 🔍
3️⃣ Extracts titles, summaries, links, and metadata from results 📄
4️⃣ Filters out guidelines, index pages, and non-discussion links 🚫
5️⃣ Aggregates valid discussion threads into a single dataset 📦
6️⃣ Uses AI to identify key trends, problems, and founder-relevant signals 🧠
7️⃣ Generates a concise daily founder digest (trend, why it matters, actions) ✍️
8️⃣ Sends the digest automatically via email 📧
9️⃣ Cleans and normalizes insights for storage 🧹
🔟 Appends structured founder intelligence to Google Sheets for tracking 📊
✅ Key Benefits
✅ Eliminates manual Hacker News scanning
✅ Surfaces only high-signal, founder-relevant discussions
✅ Converts raw discussions into clear, actionable insights
✅ Delivers a daily, skimmable founder digest automatically
✅ Builds a historical intelligence log in Google Sheets
✅ Creates a repeatable founder research workflow
⚙️ Features
Daily scheduled execution
Hacker News discovery via Google Search (SerpAPI)
Noise filtering with custom JavaScript logic
AI-powered trend and insight extraction
Founder-focused digest generation
Email delivery via Gmail
Insight archiving in Google Sheets
🔑 Requirements
SerpAPI account
Azure OpenAI credentials
Gmail account connected to n8n
Google Sheets account
Self-hosted n8n instance
🎯 Target Audience
Startup founders tracking early signals
Product and growth leaders monitoring trends
VCs and analysts scouting emerging tools
Teams needing automated market and founder intelligence