Ask HN: How to tell the world about your project?
Except for posting to HN, how do you tell the world about your projects that you are working on? If you don't have funds for adds how do you spread the word? Only through personal social media accounts?
35 comments
Engineers are totally afraid of marketing. They think it's slimy and gross. But if you want people to use your product, you need to tell people about it.
All modern social networking and aggregator marketing that isn't ad-slot purchased, astroturfing, or some variation can be summed up as:
When your project is relevant to discussion, share it.
For example, I publish a niche product. The largest pure Lua game engine on the market. When people talk about game engines, usually 2D game engines, or multiplayer networking, I usually talk about Planimeter Game Engine 2D.[1]
Since ours is one of the few game engines (period) on the market that ships, out of the box, with full client-side prediction and reconciliation without a developer having to write their own networking code, and that's a pretty big deal for young or hobbyist developers, it's pretty easy to see why you might want to consider Planimeter's software instead.
Does Godot do that? No. Does Unity? No. Did you know that even Unreal Engine 5.1 has unreliable player movement out of the box? Yep. You're on your own with all three of the major game engines that are typically discussed. None of them do multiplayer client-side prediction for you, or in Unreal's case, they don't care if it's unreliable and your player jumps around everywhere--by design. Seriously.
None of those guys care at all about multiplayer. What they care about is marketing their photorealistic rendering pipelines. Except young hobbyist developers don't publish photorealistic games. They want to publish multiplayer games they can play with their friends.
And because there are so many pieces of game software out there, and there are larger competitors by two orders of magnitude above our offerings, I usually have to bring up our product more often to share alternatives with people.
The key is finding relevant times to share, versus spamming. Share when you release updates, share during discussions, go to places talking about the topic you're writing for.
See? Just like that. There was a topic at hand, marketing, I shared my experience with you, it was relevant, I didn't buy an ad slot, and hopefully you got something out of it.
[1]: https://github.com/topics/game-engine?l=lua
All modern social networking and aggregator marketing that isn't ad-slot purchased, astroturfing, or some variation can be summed up as:
When your project is relevant to discussion, share it.
For example, I publish a niche product. The largest pure Lua game engine on the market. When people talk about game engines, usually 2D game engines, or multiplayer networking, I usually talk about Planimeter Game Engine 2D.[1]
Since ours is one of the few game engines (period) on the market that ships, out of the box, with full client-side prediction and reconciliation without a developer having to write their own networking code, and that's a pretty big deal for young or hobbyist developers, it's pretty easy to see why you might want to consider Planimeter's software instead.
Does Godot do that? No. Does Unity? No. Did you know that even Unreal Engine 5.1 has unreliable player movement out of the box? Yep. You're on your own with all three of the major game engines that are typically discussed. None of them do multiplayer client-side prediction for you, or in Unreal's case, they don't care if it's unreliable and your player jumps around everywhere--by design. Seriously.
None of those guys care at all about multiplayer. What they care about is marketing their photorealistic rendering pipelines. Except young hobbyist developers don't publish photorealistic games. They want to publish multiplayer games they can play with their friends.
And because there are so many pieces of game software out there, and there are larger competitors by two orders of magnitude above our offerings, I usually have to bring up our product more often to share alternatives with people.
The key is finding relevant times to share, versus spamming. Share when you release updates, share during discussions, go to places talking about the topic you're writing for.
See? Just like that. There was a topic at hand, marketing, I shared my experience with you, it was relevant, I didn't buy an ad slot, and hopefully you got something out of it.
[1]: https://github.com/topics/game-engine?l=lua
This is absolutely the difference between spam and useful. It's way more effective to keep tabs on when people need help and share your solution instead of blindly posting the solution to reddit, etc and not to mention a marketing strategy way more palatable to engineers.
Good answer. Surprised your bio is not filled out.
I should probably fill it back in again. Thanks for mentioning this.
From my own experience with building Mockoon:
I submitted the project on various places: HN, Reddit, Product Hunt, and lots of directories like Beta Page. HN was the best, by far. Lots of interesting feedback. Reddit was okay, but you need to post at the right time of the day, and present your project so it doesn't look like an ad (like "I created X using Y framework, feedback welcomed"). Still it helped, but it really depends on the sub on which you are posting. Product Hunt was average, Mockoon wasn't at the top during the day, more like no. 4 or 5, just under the fold. And all the directories helped only for the SEO. They didn't bring any significant traffic.
After the launch, I started writing articles, tutorials, having a good readme file on GitHub (it's an open-source project), make sure things are cross-linked and polished (the Docker image page, the NPM page, etc.). Today, the primary source of new users is word of mouth and SEO.
I have a Discord, Twitter and LinkedIn page, but I am rather bad at creating a community. Also, it requires posting very frequently about anything and everything which is time consuming with very random results. Sometimes I post an update on what I am working on, and I get 10 likes, sometimes 0. Very frustrating. Then, the post is lost forever. LinkedIn is showing way better results for me though. I would say invest in SEO. It is a long term game, you still depends on Google, but if you do things correctly it pays.
I submitted the project on various places: HN, Reddit, Product Hunt, and lots of directories like Beta Page. HN was the best, by far. Lots of interesting feedback. Reddit was okay, but you need to post at the right time of the day, and present your project so it doesn't look like an ad (like "I created X using Y framework, feedback welcomed"). Still it helped, but it really depends on the sub on which you are posting. Product Hunt was average, Mockoon wasn't at the top during the day, more like no. 4 or 5, just under the fold. And all the directories helped only for the SEO. They didn't bring any significant traffic.
After the launch, I started writing articles, tutorials, having a good readme file on GitHub (it's an open-source project), make sure things are cross-linked and polished (the Docker image page, the NPM page, etc.). Today, the primary source of new users is word of mouth and SEO.
I have a Discord, Twitter and LinkedIn page, but I am rather bad at creating a community. Also, it requires posting very frequently about anything and everything which is time consuming with very random results. Sometimes I post an update on what I am working on, and I get 10 likes, sometimes 0. Very frustrating. Then, the post is lost forever. LinkedIn is showing way better results for me though. I would say invest in SEO. It is a long term game, you still depends on Google, but if you do things correctly it pays.
Product hunt seemed always like a lot of effort to get a good position. You need to have coordinated action across lot of channels to get the word out at the right time. Am I right about this?
From my experience, yes. Also -- that coordination itself needs to be very coordinated (there are a lot of non-obvious things that can cause you to be demoted).
It's pretty gamified by now.
It's pretty gamified by now.
I keep reading now that's it's a bit rigged and hard to be at the top.
If I had a new project to promote I think I wouldn't spend to much time on Product Hunt.
Also, again, it's one shot vs long-term SEO. Sure, it gives you a boost, but only a temporary one. Don't bet everything on it.
Hi, just wanted to let you know we are using this at work.
Our flow is:
1) Create OpenApi Spec.
2) Build it out in Mockoon.
3) Share Mockoon endpoint (hosted on aws app runner in a container).
4) Iterate on feedback.
5) Build real thing.
Thanks a lot!
1) Create OpenApi Spec.
2) Build it out in Mockoon.
3) Share Mockoon endpoint (hosted on aws app runner in a container).
4) Iterate on feedback.
5) Build real thing.
Thanks a lot!
You're welcome :)
Always happy to learn about the positive impact of what I built.
If you have any specific feedback or facing an issue, do not hesitate to join our Discord or GitHub Discussions. I will be glad to help!
If you have any specific feedback or facing an issue, do not hesitate to join our Discord or GitHub Discussions. I will be glad to help!
Submit it to Hackaday, post on HN, post on reddit. Do this everytime your project has a major update, not just once. People may scoff at this, but you can buy reddit upvotes on Fiverr. You don't beed to buy thousands, just enough to make sure your post doesn't get buried. Also start an IRC, Slack or Discord for your project.
This hackaday is new thing to me. Will take a look at it.
On reddit I've been told that I' a "spammer" since I've cross posted one announcement to few relevant subreddits.
IRC, didn't hear about it for a long time. I need to check out which servers and channels might be relevant for me. thanks!
On reddit I've been told that I' a "spammer" since I've cross posted one announcement to few relevant subreddits.
IRC, didn't hear about it for a long time. I need to check out which servers and channels might be relevant for me. thanks!
I think the secret of Reddit is to interact in an authentic, humble way (Sorry I don't find other words to describe this) on targeted subs.
For me, what worked, is to share the app on /r/electronjs because it was made with Electron: "I published my first app built with Electron, love the framework. Let me know what you think!"
Or on /r/api: "I created a mock API tool, my first big side project. I hope it can be useful for some people."
And the more you interact and ask for feedback the better it is.
And the more you interact and ask for feedback the better it is.
You're not alone with the reddit thing, don't let it deter you from trying to get your idea out.
For projects that you will ultimately be charging money for, from my own experience, comments on HN in which you describe how you use your project generate a lot more interest than submissions of your project or articles about your project.
This next one might not stand the test of time given that Mastodon is still finding its place in the social media landscape, but right now, Mastodon is a great place to share and build interest in both your paid and free open source projects. The culture is very much open to promotion of "cool stuff you're working on", unlike the majority of established social media platforms.
If you're working on something that is quite visual, it's worth looking into TikTok videos as well. There are more than a few pieces of software that I've been turned on to by repeated exposure through TikTok.
This next one might not stand the test of time given that Mastodon is still finding its place in the social media landscape, but right now, Mastodon is a great place to share and build interest in both your paid and free open source projects. The culture is very much open to promotion of "cool stuff you're working on", unlike the majority of established social media platforms.
If you're working on something that is quite visual, it's worth looking into TikTok videos as well. There are more than a few pieces of software that I've been turned on to by repeated exposure through TikTok.
For me Mastodont is unknow territories :) I must say that I'm having a hard time of grasping the concepts behind it. How to find which server should I join?
If you're someone who frequents places like HN, I'd suggest https://hachyderm.io - very well run and has a lot of like-minded people with tech expertise and interests.
Think of other resources besides money that you can use for promoting projects: 1) your time and energy and 2) creativity. A reliable way to get traffic is to produce valuable content such as articles and videos. Sure, they also need promotion, but you can post them to HN, reddit, etc from time to time and it will be more reliable and sustainable source of traffic than a one-time link to the project. It's a hard way but it works 100%.
Look for new platforms and communities that are not sick of things being promoted. There is an excellent observation about Mastodon now in the comments.
SEO works. I've prototyped a new project recently – a collection of learning resources on IT topics (https://bestresourcestolearnx.com) – I haven't even started to promote it yet but it gets some relevant SEO traffic anyway.
Creative promotion ideas are project-specific, but I would think about how you can collaborate with people with some audience in your field. Like game developers giving away their games to streamers and influencers.
And mention your project when the opportunity arises (if appropriate, of course).
Look for new platforms and communities that are not sick of things being promoted. There is an excellent observation about Mastodon now in the comments.
SEO works. I've prototyped a new project recently – a collection of learning resources on IT topics (https://bestresourcestolearnx.com) – I haven't even started to promote it yet but it gets some relevant SEO traffic anyway.
Creative promotion ideas are project-specific, but I would think about how you can collaborate with people with some audience in your field. Like game developers giving away their games to streamers and influencers.
And mention your project when the opportunity arises (if appropriate, of course).
I have the same problem. I have a very niche app that I made for myself, then thought I might as well try selling it since there is no alternative to get the functionality.
I can't say I've had a lot of success. Most posts on Reddit get removed as ads and relevant Discords tolerate self-promotion even less. Got one upvote from HN [1] though. Perhaps if I'd written it in Rust instead of C, it might have done better here :)
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=veyh
I can't say I've had a lot of success. Most posts on Reddit get removed as ads and relevant Discords tolerate self-promotion even less. Got one upvote from HN [1] though. Perhaps if I'd written it in Rust instead of C, it might have done better here :)
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=veyh
Build a network. Contribute to things. Cultivate friendships. Help people. Do that for a few years and then people might listen to your ideas.
I've been contributing to various open source projects for years. Because I believe in them. I'm just one of the contributors, so I don't even know how to approach someone with "Hey, can you help me with...". I guess that I need to go out and hang out more. Thanks :)
I'm the author/maintainer of an open-source project that receives a relatively large number of pull-requests.
FWIW, if you're contributing to a sufficiently large project, it's entirely possible that the maintainers don't even read your name or look at your avatar when they review your PRs. (Unless, of course, you're _heavily_ involved in the project.)
I personally seldom do. There simply isn't enough time to "get to know" contributors. PRs are business and transactional, and nothing else. Building FOSS is a team effort, but it's not a "social" activity. You can't "hang out" on Github.
(I don't say this to be disparaging or discouraging, of course!)
IMO, if you want to engage professionally with others in a more personal way, ~~Twitter~~ Mastodon, Twitch, and other similar platforms are the way to go.
When I'm reviewing your PR, I only care about the diff. When I'm talking to you on Mastodon/Twitch/HN/etc, I care about your thoughts and opinions. It's just a different, less task-focused way to interact with someone.
I wish you the best with your project!
FWIW, if you're contributing to a sufficiently large project, it's entirely possible that the maintainers don't even read your name or look at your avatar when they review your PRs. (Unless, of course, you're _heavily_ involved in the project.)
I personally seldom do. There simply isn't enough time to "get to know" contributors. PRs are business and transactional, and nothing else. Building FOSS is a team effort, but it's not a "social" activity. You can't "hang out" on Github.
(I don't say this to be disparaging or discouraging, of course!)
IMO, if you want to engage professionally with others in a more personal way, ~~Twitter~~ Mastodon, Twitch, and other similar platforms are the way to go.
When I'm reviewing your PR, I only care about the diff. When I'm talking to you on Mastodon/Twitch/HN/etc, I care about your thoughts and opinions. It's just a different, less task-focused way to interact with someone.
I wish you the best with your project!
Have a look at these videos of Gabriel Weinberg of DuckDuckGo about traction: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpNwgXYhL09_afXgVjigb...
He also authored a book entitled "Traction: How Any Startup Can Achieve Explosive Customer Growth".
He also authored a book entitled "Traction: How Any Startup Can Achieve Explosive Customer Growth".
A cheesy video trailer can't hurt. Even for something as niche as a 3D system written in Common Lisp. :)
https://youtu.be/i0CwhEDAXB0
Video can get some exposure, though it is more work than a blog post.
https://youtu.be/i0CwhEDAXB0
Video can get some exposure, though it is more work than a blog post.
Or like github did with atom https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7aEiVwBAdk
Everywhere, all the time, using the same handle/username.
- My blog
- My project's blog
- Twitter
- LinkedIn
- Facebook groups
- Reddit
- Old school forums
- Discord/Slack
Note that posting something once isn't nearly enough marketing.
- My blog
- My project's blog
- Facebook groups
- Old school forums
- Discord/Slack
Note that posting something once isn't nearly enough marketing.
Depends on the product. Go to where your (prospective) customers are.
You should know who wants to use it before you build it. That market probably has a community, often one that revolves around a hacky fix that your solution is properly fixing.
i have come to the conclusion over the past 10 years that it is now all about buying ads. seo doesn’t seem to work anymore and on social media nothing gets reach organically. i am wondering how other people are dealing with this. i cannot afford to pay for ads in my business. if i did i would have no margin left to work with.
Don’t tell the world, tell the people who care (or would care) about it.