I had no idea what you did and didn't really care until you used it in context of something I did care about: Hacker News. Now I know what you do, understand how it applies to me, and best of all, I'm starting to visualize how else I could use it.
We should all approach our prospects like you just did here. Nice job!
So absolutely tell your prospects how your product will let them do things they want to do—if you don't understand what they want to do well enough to be able to do this, they aren't very good prospects yet—but always focus on your product, because that's what you have to sell, and that's what people are going to be willing to pay for.
We're also attracted to self referential expression, such as HN comments about HN self-organization, HN self-policing, and HN self-referential comments.
The "meta-HN" stuff is an incarnation of this, and shows that HN is appreciated by a critical mass of people. This is a huge boon to the community as it leads to things such as people using Markdown syntax for clarity, proper spelling/punctuation, well thought-out comments, and often (but not always) a positive and constructive viewpoint aimed at advancing the discussion.
Self-referential comments do, however, have a tendency to derail conversation from that which is being discussed. In a threaded comment system, that tends to garner frustration after the initial novelty of the ideas has worn off. Case in point: Reddit has a weird attitude toward self-reference. Over the last year or so, there's been a (personally perceived) decline in self-referential memes, and redditors seem to see it as derivative now.
Better yet, make your product something that your prospects will care deeply about. That way you can kill both birds with one stone.