Ask HN: I released my project. Where do I go from here?

[jamie_maddocks]

I've just released my latest project, http://5factsabout.me and I submitted a story here and it got 3 comments, I've submitted to reddit and it didn't get much attention.

I've emailed Mashable and Techcrunch to try and get some coverage, so I'm waiting for a response.

I want to try and get it out to a wider audience (my target market is generally the sort of people who use, tumblr, twitter and facebook very actively) I'm not sure where to go from here to get it some attention. though. It's the first web project I've ever really made. I think it's got potential so far it's been live just over a day and I've got 60 users.

tl;dr Released project, how do I market it to social users.

[noodle]

your marketing model should not be "email techcrunch and get coverage".

i hope that you have features that make this social tool easy to socially spread. if thats the case and you have something people are interested in using, it should spread.

if i were you, i'd reverse the process. having people sign up first before knowing anything about your app is off-putting. switch it up, have them enter in their 5 facts first and then once they save it, let them do their account. people will be more willing to sign up to save their work than sign up just to see the product.

how do you spread it? make it interesting and easy to use. it'll spread from the ground up.

[jamie_maddocks]

I have twitter/facebook buttons to make it easy to sign in, on the dashboard it has facebook/twitter share buttons that lets them post a message to the service and the same system on the results page. I tried to make it so whenever there's something that could or would be wanted to share, I made it available at the click of a button.

I like your idea on entering the 5 facts and it'll definitely be something I'll look into. Thanks for the advice.

[noodle]

no problem. this isn't the kind of thing that people are going to search for on google to find and use. you're going to have to get people using it and it'll spread like that. make it easy for high schoolers to use it. perhaps (i don't know if you're doing it already or not) widgetize it for blogs.

[makeee]

I think the concept is pretty good, and I could see something like this going viral, but before marketing it I would work on the user flow a bit more..

1. Engage people right away. I think those login / signup forms are going to scare people away. If it were my site, I'd just have a box where users input 5 facts about themself, an input box where they pic a username, and a big button that says "Create my page at 5factsabout.me/xxxx". Once they do that, ask for the their email / pass (or fb / twitter login) to finish the process.

2. Make it as easy as possible for people to choose their facts. Suggest some ideas for real facts (a place where you lived, your middle name, etc..), and then possibly pull up facts entered by other people to give people ideas for fake facts. Maybe they can just click a suggested fake fact to add it.

Also, I'd suggest using the standard fb and twitter connect buttons. The buttons you're using now don't seem like login buttons. People are used to the standard fbml facebook connect button.

In my opinion, those changes could easily be the difference between it going viral and not going anywhere.

[jamie_maddocks]

Thanks for the reply it's been note. I was thinking about changing the login buttons myself aswell, I thought that they didn't really look much like login buttons. Thanks for the advice.

[xjki]

Start with closest evironment- your friends, collegues, people you know. Let them know what you built, invite them, may be ask a favor to come and register.

I remember how founder of CollegeHomour shared his experiences how he started site by creating countless accounts by himself and posted basic content to make site rolling. You should start with some user base to make site rolling.

What from technical point of view- sign in twitter and facebook icons looks wrong. You should make Twiiter/Facebook auth as first choice.

[jamie_maddocks]

http://5factsabout.me