
Ask HN: How do you get the initial traction for your web side-project? - thakobyan
You had the idea and you&#x27;ve built it. You share your project with your friends on Twitter and Facebook for some feedback. But what&#x27;s next, how do you make your side-project be accessible for a larger audience?
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csallen
My site [https://IndieHackers.com](https://IndieHackers.com) has in-depth
interviews with lots of developers who've launched their side projects.
There's definitely some good information there!

I also wrote a post about my experience launching Indie Hackers itself:
[https://www.indiehackers.com/blog/launching-
to-300000-pagevi...](https://www.indiehackers.com/blog/launching-
to-300000-pageviews)

To answer your question more directly, I think it really depends on what
you're building! If your project does a good job appealing to a niche and,
ideally, solving a prickly pain point of theres, that makes it easier. The
next step is to find places where those people hang out online, and then learn
the rules of those communities so you can respectfully introduce what you've
built.

~~~
joshontheweb
I got my first few hundred users (aside from friends) by searching twitter for
people complaining about the problem I was solving and showing them my
solution. Luckily I had stumbled onto a good product market fit and It worked
really well. Also posted on relevant subreddits. Everything since has been
organic growth.

Edit: my hn clent is buggy and keeps replying to your comment and not the
parent thread. Sorry.

~~~
rndstr
Your SaaS' text to background contrast is quite low in some places, makes it
very hard to read even with good eyesight

~~~
joshontheweb
I agree, Im in the process of a complete redesign that should help. Thanks!

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sharemywin
Here's a good list of sites to submit to:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6488822](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6488822)

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soboleiv
Here's a good article on Traction (which promotes the book with the same title
and the book is Amazing!) [https://medium.com/swlh/the-19-channels-you-can-
use-to-get-t...](https://medium.com/swlh/the-19-channels-you-can-use-to-get-
traction-93c762d19339#.dz1lz6jed)

Also it depends on which kind of project is that, are you targeting specific
people? Can you tell a bit more about it?

~~~
siquick
Great book, definitely worth buying

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00taffe
The problem is the target of the project. If friends on Twitter and Facebook
fall within the target, then send your project to try.

But if the project solve a problem away from you, try to think the best
channel through which sponsor your project. You study your competitor and find
which channel they use because it's better choose a different channel.

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sharemywin
checkout these:

[https://growthhackers.com/growth-studies](https://growthhackers.com/growth-
studies)

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xiaoma
The options depend pretty heavily on the price point, how much you can invest
per user and how much traction you need to fund future growth.

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siquick
If its B2C then you can't go wrong with some highly-targeted FB ads to
validate your idea, and gain some initial interest.

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sharemywin
find bloggers to give a free trial to. also, blogging yourself.

