Ask HN: How do you promote your side projects?

[karuth]

I have been working on a side project that would be a database of people interested in carpooling. If people don't signup, the website is useless. I am trying to figure out how to promote this website so users would signup. Any suggestions / advice?

[kzisme]

I would focus on the people that could use it the most.

First focus on location,groups,individuals.

If you focus on a city, college campus, or town it could then be pinned down to a specific group of people - in a class, project, building. Then further it could be a few people who live near one another that could take advantage of such a service.

[shoo]

this sounds like a good idea to me.

you don't need a huge number of people, you just need enough people in one rough location.

you might be able to get in contact with local community groups in an area who could benefit from the service. if you are initially targeting a particular area, you could also advertise it the old fashioned way by physically distributing notices / flyers -- i have seen this done for car-sharing services in my city.

if you initially advertise / promote the website to a bunch of people who are scattered all over the world, perhaps you'll struggle to hit a critical threshold of density for the website to be useful to anyone in any particular location.

edit: if you promote your website via something like product hunt, reddit, etc, consider the audience that you are promoting it to. are they likely to all live in a similar location? are they likely to find a car-sharing service useful? why?

edit^2: some other ideas:

* perhaps to get the first few people to sign up, you could drive them places yourself! * you might be able to find per-city / per-town car-ownership statistics. this could possibly be useful in deciding which regions could most benefit * you might also be able to find car traffic statistics. these could also be useful for figuring out where there might be large flows of people driving roughly the same way (i've found these before as publicly available data for my city)

good luck!

[TySchultz]

I am making a tool that showcases 10 new ideas/early projects each day. Sort of a combination of Yahoo news digest with Product hunt. With the purpose of helping form these new ideas.

For each of the ideas/projects, the maker can get feedback by asking multiple choice questions for viewers to answer.

Is this something you might be interested in using to promote and shape your side projects?

[karuth]

This sounds great! I am looking for some initial users that can give some critical feedback as well. I will get in touch with you soon. Thanks!

[johnsocs]

Focus on the demographic of the people who need this tool.

For example get in with colleges and universities particularly those in areas where public transit is not accessible.

[karuth]

This makes sense. Thanks for the input.

[mooreds]

Ah, the two sided marketplace problem. Who is the limiting factor, and how can you persuade people with those characteristics to join your site?

Is the limiting factor drivers or riders?

[karuth]

Can you explain why you think this is a two sided marketplace problem?

In my case the subscribers of my site are the consumers. But I need a lot of subscribers to start with so that when they sign up, and start to consume, there is a potential match.

[theaccordance]

What I've done/will do on the next project:

- Pre-release signup to be notified when it's available

- Product Hunt

- Create a "Show HN" post on Hacker News

- Reddit

[joeyspn]

Question for all the redditors: Is there like a ShowHN on Reddit or you just post a story and hope for the best?

[jetti]

I have subscribed to two subreddits that sort of cover this. The first is /r/SideProject. It is a place that people post their side projects and occasionally blogs/articles about their side project. The pros of it is that people don't frown on self promotion but the con is that there doesn't seem to be many comments going on to help improve your offering. The second is /r/lookatmyprogram although that sub seems to be dead. The bigger (if not the biggest) software subreddit is /r/programming but they state that "App demos should include code and/or architecture discussion." so you wouldn't be able to flat out promote.

[yellowapple]

> but they state that "App demos should include code and/or architecture discussion." so you wouldn't be able to flat out promote.

Unless architecture/code is a selling point, of course.

Also, /r/software and some of its ilk might be a good place to look at, though I don't know about promotion (it seems to be the other way around: people looking for software that does a particular task).

[S4M]

I'd suggest to find a/the subreddit that corresponds the most to your side project. In the case of the OP: https://www.reddit.com/r/RedditCarpool

[sjs382]

My first piece of advice is to post a link whenever you're talking (even tangentially) about your project.

Second, promote it within a community who needs it. Some ideas: Subreddits for large metro areas (or suburbs), Facebook groups. Hopefully this gave you the spark you need to come up with others.

[karuth]

Thanks for the feedback. This makes sense.