
Ask HN: What are your secrets to growing your side project? - hsikka
Hey all! I recently started working on a little side project, and its jumped to 35 users! So, I wanted to see what the wise folks of HN do to keep their project growing, in any capacity or using any metric they see fit!
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acangiano
My key recommendation is to think in terms of building an audience, rather
than marketing your product. Who are the people interested in buying your
product? Create a community around the content that appeals to these
prospective customers. Provide genuine value.

Once you establish yourself as an authority in that field, or at least someone
who can reliably provide useful advice, selling your product becomes
significantly easier. In some cases, people will even want to give you money
just to support what you do.

If you sell a product or service for, say, wedding photographers, create a
blog that covers topics relevant and radically useful to this particular niche
of photographers. Perhaps make a YouTube channel on the topic, hang out in the
forums and groups where wedding photographers are, leverage social media, etc.

Find out what they need and satisfy that need, not just with your product but
with your content as well.

And how do you aggregate/consolidate your efforts through various channels?
Mailing list. Nothing beats email.

Make sure you collect emails from day one and keep your list warm by providing
great content regularly to those who subscribe.

Occasionally, you'll drop in a soft sale and special discounts for your loyal
subscribers. You'll be surprised at how many will buy from you because they
know who you are and trust you on the subject manner.

There are of course paid strategies if you have the budget, but I would first
focus on organic audience building.

Best of luck.

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taprun
Side project checklist?

[https://www.sideprojectchecklist.com/marketing-
checklist/](https://www.sideprojectchecklist.com/marketing-checklist/)

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j_s
There were two discussions when this came out, oddly with the same number of
comments:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15002079](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15002079)
(Aug 2017, 68 comments)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14942902](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14942902)
(Aug 2017, 68 comments)

A list I compiled of 4 HN user authored books on marketing and their launch
discussions:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14041248](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14041248)

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wdroz
Posting your project on HN can help, but I think you already know that.

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hsikka
By the way, you can checkout my little corner of the web here:
[https://learnsearch.xyz/](https://learnsearch.xyz/)

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smegel
Your site loads nothing with JavaScript disabled.

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hsikka
Yeah, good point. I should circle back and fix that

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codegeek
You are asking the secrets to growing your side project while answering to a
post about "make it work without javascript". Priorities. There will be this
"small" population that browse the web with js disabled (I don't necessarily
blame them) but don't focus your time on them for now at least. Grow this
project with everyone else and if someday you get big enough to care, then
care about this elite group. I say this as someone who hates too much js bloat
on sites but hey, it is about market and growth. So don't get your priorities
mixed up in the beginning.

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guohuang
Based on our experience, once you finished the MVP, you should focus on SEO,
HN can drive some traffic, but it won't last long. Good Luck!

~~~
jadeydi
I want to tell you, our network are blocked totally by China government. I
cant use VPN now, so I can't login Gtalk. I tried to sent email, but I'm not
sure you'll receive it, So i leave message here.

Most important, I don't know, how long will it continue. So sad.

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matchmike1313
Facebook Ads with job title targeting.

