I've got a side project I've worked on for a while and I'm happy with the engineering side, but I'm terrible at marketing. I've made a couple of reddit comments, shown friends who would benefit from my project, but what is the best way to get it out there?
I made the mistake of promoting my sideline on online groups 20 years ago. Some nasty responses. One random guy however told me to keep going and ignore the criticism. Groups are full of critics who couldn't make porridge let alone a product.
What got me started was sending out letters to clients, in my case schools. Old school I know. I have always worked full time. The sideline has made several hundred thousand dollars over the last 20 years.
Think about how companies advertise and copy with what you can afford.
Good projects are the type that some people have been building a hack for themselves. Like a system that replaces bookkeeping or records. Payment systems that nobody wants to maintain. Most of the time, it's expensive and inefficient but they just don't have better tools.
Find the people who are doing this. If you can't think of any, well, you might have started wrong and your side project may not be worth anything.
A lot of people are trying to sell fish to the fishermen. It's not that those fish aren't worth anything; it's more that you have to leave the village.
Spending money on ads is just burning cash. Posting in online communities will get you immediately banned for spam or unpaid advertising. Social platforms will bury your content without promotion(=burning cash). And sites like HN or Product Hunt will just give you a false hope. Reddit will get you two likes and one page view.
So... don't. The internet has change so much, that it makes no sense any more to try and do anything in this regard.
The only way is to slowly keep pushing it where you can, not intentionally but seize an opportunity if you see one. Don't hope for fast progress. It's a marathon, not a sprint.
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