And someone doing that has certainly earned the right to include "one sentence that is the least salesy you can do" of self-promotion.
It’s quite amazing. I noticed these guys coming in the front page very often too, and while I agree their “hack” seems laudable while also not offending anyone (they’re doing what we are looking for), they seem to forget one more reason why they keep getting traction - the product they sell is absolutely on target to HN audience at an emotional level so people likely upvote due to that reason as well.
Is less than once a month "very often?" Or do you mean "very often relative to how frequently one would expect a company that makes an alternative to Google Analytics" would make the front page?
I did think it was hilarious that they posted an article showing how to get to the front page of HN in such a way that you can sneak in a quick mention of your product without tripping the community's anti-self promotion bias, while literally did the exact thing they were suggesting doing.