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Ask HN: How to find audience for FOSS project?

2 pointsby peterdeminabout 8 years ago
I have a not-for-profit project, that I enjoy and use extensively. However, it doesn't seem to attract a natural flow of new users. I tried to post about it on Twitter, Google Plus, Reddit, Hacker News. Each post brings tens to hundreds of visits to a landing page, few stars, occasional PRs. I'm sure there are people, who will like the project as much as I do, but how do I find them?

3 comments

kjksfabout 8 years ago
I looked at the project and I think the issue here is unrealistic expectations.<p>I think you&#x27;re doing pretty good in terms of attracting people to your project but, to use startup terms, there is no project-market fit.<p>It&#x27;s a tool for people who can write their own recipes and are comfortable running a unix service.<p>There&#x27;s a very small number of people who are even capable of using such tool.<p>On top of that, the value is too low. I&#x27;m capable of setting this up but I don&#x27;t care enough about being e-mailed about Github API release notification (or other scenarios in your docs) to go through the hassle.<p>As far as constructive feedback goes. If you want to make your project more useful:<p>* focus on recipes. Each new recipe is potentially additional marketing. Make recipes more prominent in your docs<p>* make a publicly available instance where people can create accounts and use it without self-hosting. Maybe there&#x27;s even a business there<p>* more notification options (Slack seems like a no-brainer). Or even turn it into IFTTT-like system<p>* keep writing more posts, blogging, using twitter, posting to HN etc. Those are valid marketing tools, just don&#x27;t expect miracles.<p>I would still not get your hopes up. You might end up doing a lot of work and still not have a product-market fit.
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kingbirdyabout 8 years ago
Try finding more specific places to share it - globally broadcasting it on twitter it will just be lost in the noise; find a specific niche community that would really appreciate your project and share there.<p>However, I will say I think there&#x27;s probably not much &quot;market&quot; for your app. It seems like it&#x27;s just a wrapper for what can already be done with webhooks and slack.
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peterdeminabout 8 years ago
Just in case, here is the project: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;kibitzr.github.io" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;kibitzr.github.io</a>