Earlier this year, a Hacker News reader asked a good question for those working on different side projects:
How do you promote your personal projects with a limited budget?
The user doesn't expect to necessarily make money from the projects, just to get more attention to them. Of course, you might have a different goal in mind, including monetization and even an exit plan. Whatever the case, there's lots of good advice in the thread.
The top comment explains that sometimes this approach is backwards:
"If you start by building a project for some group of people you do it by talking to them, getting requirements, building, demoing, iterating, etc. Promotion, in this model, is a continuous process of community interaction. You're building distribution. To build and then begin promoting, which is how I have historically done it too, is to rely on marketing and advertising spend to define and drive a value prop for a market that is, hopefully, well-defined. You're buying distribution."
Other comments are more about what channels to use. People have found success with YouTube, whereas others are good with things like Reddit and Hacker News. Also, writing blog posts and focusing on organic growth are recommended over things like paid promotions.
Of course, it all depends on what is being promoted, but I like the diverse opinions in the thread and I'm sure you'll find something useful there as well.
Now on to this week's hand-picked productivity links!
