Ask HN: How to start up as an individual developer?

14 points by alexyan0431 12 days ago | 16 comments

I have been trying to become an individual developer for a period, and have developed several tools or little projects (mainly open source). Some of them actually are very helpful at least to me, but unfortunately I am the only one to use them.

No pull requests, no issues, even no stars except the only one from myself. I found it hard for them to be seen. I feel down because if there are no users, I can't get any feedbacks and it's hard for me to improve my projects. I feel trapped into a hole and can do nothing but to stay at the origin and get drowned.

How can I promote my open-source projects (and maybe products in the future) ? I'll really appreciate it if someone with related experiences can offer me some advice.

sminchev 8 days ago |

This is always the struggle. To implement it is not like promote it. Making the product publicly visible and known is actually the harder part.

Be consistent, try on multiple places, be active, make good site, good videos, good training, talk to people, listen what they say. Post it in reddit, write articles in places like here, dev.to, medium, explain how you did it, why, what you learned...

Cases where somebody implements something and it becomes viral for a one night sleep are so rare, that I am not really sure that they actually exists ;)

alexyan0431 1 day ago | |

Thank you for your valuable suggestions!

imvetri 9 days ago |

You will find in five years. Untill then, practice, analyse, experiment the tool, make it efficient.

You would have already known your plan, the five years is to clear out the trash from head and find why you started in first place

alexyan0431 1 day ago | |

Totally agree. There are too much noise on the way to the target and we have to keep the original intention.

nicbou 11 days ago |

> No pull requests, no issues, even no stars

This is the standard for most projects

What is your objective?

alexyan0431 11 days ago | |

I totally agree! As most of developers do, I want my projects to be seen by more users. It's really helpful to find out the drawbacks in my projects and make me realize how to imporve my works. I need feedbacks, both positive and negative are welcome. So I'm writing this post to ask my seniors for advice and experiences on how to promote an open-source project.

didgetmaster 11 days ago |

You could start by putting a link to your projects or blogs in your HN profile.

chistev 8 days ago |

You can improve by aiming for increasingly complex programming features. A step above what you can already do.

alexyan0431 1 day ago | |

That's a great idea. I'll try it from now on.

the__alchemist 10 days ago |

This is normal. Projects used by others are the exception. They are usually driven by skilled marketing efforts or funding.

alexyan0431 10 days ago | |

Yes. Marketing skills are significant, and I'm trying to learn more about it. It's just at the early stage for me though lol. I hope I can stick to it.

OutrageousTea 10 days ago |

Post it where your users already spend time and keep it simple—show what problem it solves, not just the code.

alexyan0431 10 days ago | |

Agreed. I think that's the basis of promotion and marketing: find your users and make sure you can reach them. I'll try to be more focused on meeting the needs. Ty.

milkytron 11 days ago |

What do you find them useful for? Could they potentially provide value to another open source project if integrated?

alexyan0431 11 days ago | |

The inspiration came from scattered fragments of my observed needs in life, so it may be hard to intergrate the tools. But I can intentionally do this afterwards. Thank you for your comment.

hnarayanan 11 days ago |

Please share some of your tools.