

Ask HN: How do you promote your open-source project? - jattardi

I have an open source project I&#x27;ve been working on and I&#x27;d love to have people using it and getting feedback from them. I&#x27;m not sure how to go about this, though. It&#x27;s 100% free OSS so I&#x27;m not looking to make money.<p>Other than a Show HN post, how do you get people to actually try and use your project?
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taprun
Do this the same way you'd get more people to buy it, if you were selling it.

* Reduce barriers to entry - make sure that your product is easy to find, easy to install (or to setup an account), easy to use, easy to see its value * Figure out who your _ideal_ user is. Who will get the absolute most value out of your product? * Document exactly how easy it is for your ideal user to get some specific "quick wins" with it. Pick one as your "primary pitch". * Figure out where your ideal user hangs out and describe the "quick wins" from above. Find people who are actively complaining about problems and say "Oh by the way, this easy-to-use free software will fix that for you". * When those users are happy, ask them to tell their friends.

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bluerail
Same here.. But it's not an software or something, I just created an Github
repo for OSS creators to get contributors and for contributors to get an apt
open source project for them.. But, it is not a single worth if no one
contributes and there it lies in dust..

[https://github.com/avinoth/OpenSourceForBeginners](https://github.com/avinoth/OpenSourceForBeginners)

the real problem here is I am new too, and that is my first Repo, hence, need
some absolute guidance which I could never get irrespective of my requests...
:(

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zachlatta
I posted Postman
([https://github.com/zachlatta/postman](https://github.com/zachlatta/postman))
on HN, /r/programming, and /r/golang. I also sent it to a few friends I knew
who were interested in email. I got about 15 thousand hits and coverage on a
few small sites in addition to a couple pull requests.

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jattardi
I haven't posted on /r/programming yet. How well received was your post there?
I don't want to be seen as spamming. I posted a link there once that had some
advertising in it and I got slammed.

~~~
moron4hire
I've had similar experiences. HN mostly ignores my work and Reddit actively
engages in berating and belittling.

Most of the stuff I've read points towards getting to know bloggers in the
industry for which your software covers and submitting to them for review.
Don't ask me how to avoid appearing spammy there, either. The articles I've
read just say "do it" not "how".

You could also try paying for advertising. The bounce rate is much higher, but
it's proven to be a much more reliable stream than social media for my
project.

