Ask HN: How do you promote your personal project in limited budget?
69 comments
·May 21, 2025throwpoaster
I think this type of question is, roughly, backwards.
If you start by building a project _for_ some group of people you do it by talking to them, getting requirements, building, demoing, iterating, etc. Promotion, in this model, is a continuous process of community interaction. You're building distribution.
To build and _then_ begin promoting, which is how I have historically done it too, is to rely on marketing and advertising spend to define and drive a value prop for a market that is, hopefully, well-defined. You're buying distribution.
In that context, the answer in this case is to simply start talking about your project and showing it to people and asking for feedback (as you have done), and be conscious that what you're looking for is signals of user interest -- little sparks that you can convert into tiny flames so that you can start a fire.
Assume that you are still at user experience iteration zero. Everything you've done so far is sunk cost and still needs iterative user validation.
cosmicgadget
That sounds a lot like work. For me, a big benefit of personal projects is seeing how much I can accomplish when there isn't process.
And so either the output is something that only helps me or it's something that's generally useful to others and maybe needs last mile tweaks to be ready for prime time.
If I did agile poker and code commenting and stuff it would take all the fun (momentum) out of sitting down at my home desk after hours at my work desk.
I should say, your answer is completely correct - particularly for motivated people - and not incongruous with my perspective. I just wanted to spare a thought for the things that make personal projects fun. I just would only do requirements gathering over a beer.
adenverd
> That sounds a lot like work.
Correct. This is why the Product Manager role exists - to define "what problem are we solving, why, and for whom?" by engaging with the market. But if you already know what problem you want to solve (for yourself, or for fun), don't bother. But also don't expect others to pay for a solution to a problem they don't have.
> agile poker and code commenting and stuff
These are tools for team collaboration and business planning, i.e. when there is more than one person involved in a project. You don't _need_ them for solo projects (although I do think code commenting is still a good practice even for solo projects).
nopelynopington
I'm in the same boat exactly, I build things for myself and then hope other people will use them. I struggle to market things, it seems like so much legwork and I've too many irons in the fire. I almost wish I could just hire a marketer who would take a 50% cut.
> If I did agile poker and code commenting and stuff it would take all the fun (momentum) out of sitting down at my home desk after hours at my work desk.
I hope you're not sitting for hours at work and then continuing to sit for hours in the evening. That's not healthy. It might just be a figure of speech but if not, I'd recommend a standing desk either at work or at home.
I know someone will probably argue with me about standing desks because internet people love arguing, but there's ample evidence that sitting all day is bad for us
cosmicgadget
Haha well rest assured I was being hyperbolic. The desk job requires a decent amount of walking around and other after hours obligations mean I only have limited personal dev time.
> a marketer
Maybe get chummy with a product manager who likes it enough to do it after hours?
garrickvanburen
personal projects are fantastic and don't require making anyone happy except yourself.
if however your goal is to make other people happy (which I'd argue is no longer a personal project)...the iterative "work" described above is the fastest, straightest path.
halfadot
>In that context, the answer in this case is to simply start talking about your project and showing it to people and asking for feedback (as you have done), and be conscious that what you're looking for is signals of user interest -- little sparks that you can convert into tiny flames so that you can start a fire.
So all of this text just to tell him to do what he's already been doing?
joduplessis
> Everything you've done so far is sunk cost
What an incredibly cynical answer to an honest question.
MajimasEyepatch
That’s not cynical at all. They’re not saying it’s wasted effort. “Sunk cost” just means that you can’t get that time and money and effort back, so go where the evidence leads you today, even if it strays from your original vision.
bsnnkv
My credentials: I just got my 50th individual commercial use license subscription last night, and including sponsorship for personal use of the software, I have 90 people contributing financially towards the project.
My advice: Make YouTube videos sharing how you use the product and sharing updates about the product in a structured format. Places like HackerNews, Reddit, pretty much any text-based network, are extremely hostile towards people sharing the outcomes of their individual creativity, whereas video-based networks are surprisingly open to it.
zahlman
How did you get people to know about your Youtube channel and start watching the videos? Getting into "the algorithm" seems to involve quite a bit of luck of the draw these days.
bsnnkv
Honestly, it was all the algorithm - I started with very shoddy[1] live programming videos, and slowly I got better[2] by listening to feedback from the early users who gave my videos a chance
There is an element of luck involved (i.e. for extremely viral videos), but most of it is iteration - learning how to record and mix audio properly, learning how to make the best of the lighting you have available, learning that if you want to make live coding videos you need to increase your text size to an uncomfortably large size so that viewers have a more pleasant viewing experience, etc.
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ece_NCcgiMY - one of my earliest videos
[2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1yECfF7Qyg - my latest video
brudgers
You have to make a video.
Then another.
Then another.
Etc.
The algorithm will try to find an audience for them if they are sonewhat something some people might want.
But without actually making videos there’s no point in thinking about the algorithm. It is entirely empirical.
zoogeny
How long did it take you to get to 90 people through YouTube videos?
bsnnkv
I've been selling licenses[1] for less than 5 months, which is how long it took me to get to 50 active licenses
I've had GitHub sponsors enabled for about 2-3 years now I think, and I currently have 40 recurring sponsors
I've been making YouTube videos for about the same time and it took just over a year to get my channel monetized (1k subscribers + watch hours)
[1]: https://lgug2z.com/software/komorebi - there is a live active subscription counter here
taherchhabra
thanks for this insight
chilipepperhott
Contrary to some of the other comments here, I've actually found great success on Reddit and HN.
Post about your project and position it as a story. Becoming a part of the community and creating an ongoing narrative there around your project is a great way to get people interested.
Here's a good example: https://www.reddit.com/r/rust/comments/1f8159z/the_allegatio...
mg
In my experience, showing a project around (friends and social media) is enough for Google to slowly pick it up and, over time, show it to more and more people to whom it is relevant.
For that to work, it is important to think about what people search for. When I started my Product Chart project, which lets users compare products on a two-dimensional interface, I at first called it "The tourist map of flash drives":
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7465980
Of course, nobody searches for that.
Things picked up steam when I renamed it to "Product Chart":
javafactory
By the way After sharing the project here yesterday,the project hit 200 downloads and 50 GitHub stars.
I’m so happy and truly grateful to everyone on HN. Thank you
awaseem
Same after posting Foqos on here I got so many users and feedback. Truly grateful to all the people here
jrm4
It's kind of funny how many people here are giving such BIG PICTURE answers to the question?
You don't need to question the person's life choices; just, like, where do people talk about this stuff?
seethishat
Write blog posts that clearly show the real-world problems that your software solves. People who Google for those problems, may find your blog post. And, if your software is actually worthwhile, then people will post a link to it here and on other forums.
Best of luck.
cosmicgadget
A blog post is a great opportunity to demonstrate the project without people needing to do anything (except read). That said, people using search will probably only see geeks for geeks, stack overflow, reddit, and a bunch of SEO garbage. Probably it helps to drop the link (noncringily) in discussions about that problem.
magneticmonkey
My friend and I have been building an app over the past few years, and it's been a slow, sometimes painful grind. We quickly realized that paid ads are expensive and often ineffective when your audience is broad and not super easy to target. Also paid influencers suck. I am sure there is a right way to do it, but we aren’t full-time marketers, and every time it has been a nightmare working with one.
What’s worked better for us is steady organic growth: talking to friends and strangers about it, and just being active wherever we can. Word of mouth and small network effects have been key. It’s not fast, but it’s been surprisingly durable.
We’ve been building an event planning app called dateit(https://dateit.com) similar to Facebook events but better, and most of our growth has come from just optimizing the product to be simple and useful, and constantly refining it based on feedback. If you’re bootstrapping, you really have to lean into creating content and iterating fast. It takes time but it does compound if the product is good.
qweiopqweiop
This was always the app/company I would have made given the opportunity, so wishing you luck. Nothing replaced Facebook events and the sharing of photos from said events after Facebook died.
magneticmonkey
Thanks!! Yup that is exactly why we built it! We pretty quickly added photo upload and a memories feed after out initial feature set. People definitely appreciate it.
nicooo
There was a similar discussion last week titled "Ask HN: How are you acquiring your first hundred users?": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43970837
Awaytiss
I'm in the same boat with my project to track Twitch chat badges - https://badgebase.co/
I've been observing for a long time how developers promote their side-hustle projects.
Like in the answers here, the most effective approach seems to be talking about your project wherever it fits - HN, Reddit, X/Twitter, YouTube, personal blog, external blogs. The more, the better. The best platform varies for everyone. So just share your project as much as you possibly can.
bitbasher
Given it's a plugin on IntelliJ's marketplace, your best bet is to gain attention through the marketplace. Have nice screenshots, a video, explainers, etc.
1. For an IntelliJ plugin, the appropriate subreddits, discord channels, irc channels and so on (java, programming, etc).
2. You can of course share it here on HN.
3. Write about the project and try to soak in some organic traffic. Write about repetitive Java code, your solution, etc.
tiniuclx
With difficulty! For my hacking simulator Botnet of Ares [0] I am mostly using my log + MailerLite newsletter to keep people engaged. I've had some success sharing on Reddit as well, but it's hard to get traction without breaking the subreddit rules. Twitter hasn't been that good for me so far.
Generally sharing the project around the internet has been pretty decent for SEO, and my links are now ranking fairly high when people are specifically searching for the game, which is nice.
[0] https://store.steampowered.com/app/3627290/Botnet_of_Ares/
Hi everyone,
I’m the one who posted about my project here yesterday.
To be honest, I’ve always focused on development, and this is my first time launching something — so I’m really struggling with promotion. How do you get people to notice your product?
It’s an open-source IntelliJ plugin that automatically generates repetitive Java code. I believe it could be genuinely useful for many developers, especially those who like to streamline their workflow.
I’m not looking to make money from it — I just want more people to try it out. (I’m honestly afraid it’ll just disappear unnoticed.)
Are there any other good places (besides Reddit) where I could talk about my project? Even basic suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I'm really new to this area — I feel like I know less than an elementary school student.