

Ask HN: Questions that scare every developer - sqardius

Hi everyone, hope you are doing well,
this is the right place to get answers for the questions that scare any developer, at least they scare me and I'm sure that others will share the same feeling, these are the questions:<p>- 1 How can you let people know about your product?<p>- 2 How to get them to your website?<p>- 3 How can you get them to use your product?<p>- 4 How can you get feed-backs?<p>- 5 How can encourage them to tell their friends about it?<p>I know there are other questions, but please if you have any piece of information on the matter, share it us and we'll be grateful, and you are welcome to share your experience and how did you overcome this.
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kappaknight
Honestly, none of these questions should scare you if you are building
something people want.

1\. If you are building a product for someone, you should know where those
people hang out. You only run into problems if you are building a product for
no one.

2\. You can start with friends and family, but it's probably best to start
where your customers hang out. Online forums, off line meetups, etc.

3\. Again, if you're building something people want, they should be lining up
to try it out.

4\. If they're willing to try your product, they will tell you what needs to
be improved.

5\. Build real value into the product. When your product actually solves a
problem, you won't need to include Facebook, Twitter and other sharing links
for it to go viral (or WOM). If your product does nothing, adding those links
won't get you any more users either.

~~~
AznHisoka
There are a lot of sites/apps out there that people want. Yet very few gain
enough traction to be sustainable. It's not a meritocracy. It's not enough to
just build something people want. The OP has valid concerns...

~~~
kappaknight
Are you sure? I know there are lots of sites and apps but I find 99% of them
completely useless. Being a biz dev person instead of a hacker, I don't always
solve my problems with code.

This means while you CAN build an app, unless that app does something better
than the traditional way of solving the problem, then it's not something
people want. Most apps don't actually solve problems better or make them
easier than their traditional solutions.

------
mgallivan
Make your beta versions free to the initial clients / testers.

