Ask HN: How to start up as an individual developer?

[alexyan0431]

I have been trying to become an individual developer for a period, and have developed several tools or little projects (mainly open source). Some of them actually are very helpful at least to me, but unfortunately I am the only one to use them.

No pull requests, no issues, even no stars except the only one from myself. I found it hard for them to be seen. I feel down because if there are no users, I can't get any feedbacks and it's hard for me to improve my projects. I feel trapped into a hole and can do nothing but to stay at the origin and get drowned.

How can I promote my open-source projects (and maybe products in the future) ? I'll really appreciate it if someone with related experiences can offer me some advice.

[sminchev]

This is always the struggle. To implement it is not like promote it. Making the product publicly visible and known is actually the harder part.

Be consistent, try on multiple places, be active, make good site, good videos, good training, talk to people, listen what they say. Post it in reddit, write articles in places like here, dev.to, medium, explain how you did it, why, what you learned...

Cases where somebody implements something and it becomes viral for a one night sleep are so rare, that I am not really sure that they actually exists ;)

[alexyan0431]

Thank you for your valuable suggestions!

[imvetri]

You will find in five years. Untill then, practice, analyse, experiment the tool, make it efficient.

You would have already known your plan, the five years is to clear out the trash from head and find why you started in first place

[alexyan0431]

Totally agree. There are too much noise on the way to the target and we have to keep the original intention.

[didgetmaster]

You could start by putting a link to your projects or blogs in your HN profile.

[nicbou]

> No pull requests, no issues, even no stars

This is the standard for most projects

What is your objective?

[alexyan0431]

I totally agree! As most of developers do, I want my projects to be seen by more users. It's really helpful to find out the drawbacks in my projects and make me realize how to imporve my works. I need feedbacks, both positive and negative are welcome. So I'm writing this post to ask my seniors for advice and experiences on how to promote an open-source project.

[chistev]

You can improve by aiming for increasingly complex programming features. A step above what you can already do.

[alexyan0431]

That's a great idea. I'll try it from now on.

[the__alchemist]

This is normal. Projects used by others are the exception. They are usually driven by skilled marketing efforts or funding.

[alexyan0431]

Yes. Marketing skills are significant, and I'm trying to learn more about it. It's just at the early stage for me though lol. I hope I can stick to it.

[milkytron]

What do you find them useful for? Could they potentially provide value to another open source project if integrated?

[alexyan0431]

The inspiration came from scattered fragments of my observed needs in life, so it may be hard to intergrate the tools. But I can intentionally do this afterwards. Thank you for your comment.

[hnarayanan]

Please share some of your tools.