I found that the hardest part of cold applications was identifying companies. In any major city you can probably think of 20 companies off the top of your head that exist there. Fewer with your expertise or interests in mind, fewer that are currently hiring. Additionally, identifying companies (without references or a network to pull on) for job search is a labor intensive and often boring process.

Since I would rather be "always learning" it is far more fun to watch technical talks at conferences and track any company that sponsors a speech I enjoy. I am doing this constantly (not just during active job search).

Since it is the norm for technical conferences to post to youtube, this strategy only costs time.

When you have a list of companies large enough, then it is easier to find competitors or get appropriate suggestions from networking platforms like linkedin.

I never track large or obvious companies, because I probably already know their name.

Now I've been in the field long enough to pull on my network, but don't really find it necessary. I have a list of 300+ companies that I can pull on reflecting my interests/expertise at different points in my career.

The only downside to this is it doesn't usually grow proportional to your geographical region, but there are ways to bias your results with other strategies.

I might have come across this without HN, but it definitely would have happened later. People post things that interest them on HN, and I find things interesting that others do.