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Ask HN: I've got one user. What's the best way to get more?

66 points by griffinmb ↗ HN
I created a small application, and got one user. It's absolutely a hobby project -- so I'm not advertising, and I'm not looking for thousands of users. That being said, it's exciting to have people use things you make! I'd like to get small numbers of people to use it, but I'm not sure how.

What are some low-key ways you have grown hobby projects? Is it just something you let happen naturally?

62 comments

[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 138 ms ] thread
AdamWoods
Nobody is going to simply stumble across your application, so it's your job to start promoting it! That doesn't mean paying for advertising, but marketing doesn't always cost money.

If you're keen to have more people use it, you need to be able to clearly answer:

What is the benefit of using your application? What does your tool do to make people's lives easier/better? How can people access your application?

Then you start with your own social networks. Explicitly ask people to use your tool as testers, find people who you think would benefit and approach them directly. Tell people why it's cool and ask them to share it - then go from there.

griffinmb
Thanks for the response!

I think one of my issues is that the app provides a technical service, so it's limited to programmer friends who are all mostly work acquaintances. I'm not sure why, but I was hesitant to share it in the workplace. I suppose it's as good a place as any!

IshmaelF
Firstly, since it is a hobby, tell a few friends about it -- see if they would get on your application, get some feedback from them and move on accordingly.
siquick
Read this book ASAP

http://tractionbook.com/

and read https://growthhackers.com/ to get ideas

Another trick - post your URL in Ask HN posts ;)

griffinmb
Thank you for the recommendations! I'm always up for a good book.

The book seems like it's targeted for rapid growth rather than the small/steady growth I'm looking for. Is that the case? I'd be interested in reading it either way, but I'd like to hear more.

The URL is http://www.scriptcat.io :)

michaelbuckbee
The book is great and definitely about systematic steady growth.

You can get the gist of it from this Slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/jwmares/traction-trumps-everything

But the basic exercise is to go through each of the 19 different channels and see if there's something you could do and then pick the couple that make the most sense, try those and repeat.

So for Scriptcat it'd be something like:

CONTENT MARKETING Write interesting content for port best practices, what to check, what should be open when.

FB/Twitter Ads You'd need to charge to cover the costs of this, but you could see ads like: "Do you know what your ports are doing while you sleep?"

BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT Partner with ISPs to get their signups using your system. Some of them have add-on ecosystems.

What you're looking for is a system where you can put X in and get Y users out of it (ideally without a lot of time and effort on your part). I think you're already a good way along the path because you've created a useful service.

griffinmb
Wow, thanks for the great info! I just bought the book, I'm excited to get into it. Your ISP suggestion is really interesting... it's got me thinking about a lot of channels/partnerships I hadn't even considered.
martin_
A few more common port suggestions:

25 - SMTP 1433 - MSSQL 3306 - MySQL 3389 - RDP 6379 - Redis

Cool idea! :)

griffinmb
Thanks for the suggestions, I just added 'em :)
jaisonjustus
Thank you for suggesting the book. It's a very nice book I really liked it. Written in simple language, very interesting to read and know the facts too. Thanks again. If you know more good books like this suggest me. Cheers mate!! Peace
i_feel_great
Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. Depending on your network, a casual post here and there can be noticed by a few dozen people or more.
nchudleigh
Product Hunt is a great (and free) place to start

Personal Networks, writing blog posts about what you've learned, interact with people (genuinely) on twitter (and obviously link your project in your account), Reddit is also good. With any of these respect the community and don't spam them (you don't seem the type given your post here, thought I would mention anyways)

If its technical and you know where the people are who benefit go and interact with them. Help them with something they need help with. Then get them to try it, find issues, fix 'em, rinse repeat.

It takes a lot of footwork!

chipperyman573
Product Hunt seems like it's pretty hard to post without knowing someone else who will invite you as you can't comment or post without being invited, JUST upvote. Is there any way to get in at least semi-easily?
griffinmb
I initially thought about PH, but was scared off by the recent posts about needing an 'insider'. Maybe I shouldn't have let it deter me, but I'm also not sure my site is 'right' for Product Hunt and I'm definitely not an active part of their community.
mid0
focus on channels u r familiar with and gradually learn about other channels/build rep and help others.
gkoberger
You don't need an insider. They just vet things for quality, in order to keep the homepage from being overrun with bad content. If your app is good, you'll get scheduled and launched – nothing to worry about :)
chipperyman573
I can't submit at all without an insider.
adnanh
Reach out to them (PH) via twitter, I managed to get an invite that way :)
chdir
PH isn't great because of lack of transparency. See related discussions.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10739875

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10741827

There's OpenHunt, it's slowly gaining momentum www.openhunt.co

mod
If "ask hn" is any measure, OpenHunt is actually rapidly losing what little momentum it had.
kyriakos
yeah I kept checking it ever since is was featured here but it seems to be on the way down. very few submissions with very little votes. too bad. it's a good idea.
xupybd
What is the application? Sharing it here could be a start?
griffinmb
Right now, it's a tool that emails you if a new port opens up on your site. "Pingdom for open ports". I built it in response to a couple friends who got their sites hacked after deploying updates with mongodb or elasticsearch ports open.

The site is http://www.scriptcat.io (I submitted it to HN previously).

jsnider3
You know have a new user. Why does it say I have reached the max number of sites when I try to add a second?
griffinmb
Hey! Thank you! I limited the number of sites you can add by default to discourage malicious use -- I've updated your account so you can have 10. Let me know if you need more!
bakztfuture
"Do things that don't scale"

http://paulgraham.com/ds.html

griffinmb
I read that! It was definitely a catalyst for this question. I emailed my one user and let them know I'd be happy to personally help in any way I could. No response yet :)
afarrell
Go to a meetup and introduce yourself to folks and show the project to them there.
griffinmb
I want to reply to afarrell, but I can't.

I think going to meetups would be great! That might actually be my best bet since it's person-to-person and majority technical. It's definitely the target audience at least.

My site is http://www.scriptcat.io -- basically, it emails you if it detects a new open port. "Pingdom for open ports"

(Edit: I could've sworn afarrell's post initially asked what the project was)

prawn
If a post doesn't have a reply link, click on the timestamp and you should see a reply form there. I believe this is done to discourage deep, nested arguments.
SyneRyder
Don't be too dismayed by that. When I made my first software sale I also sent a similar message to the customer. In retrospect, while not a rookie mistake, it was rookie over-enthusiasm :)

Looking at some of my old stats, it's probably realistic to expect at most 10% of people to respond to that kind of email.

taprun
Why don't you ask your one user to help you?
johnloeber
For the current stage, this is the most important piece of advice. Everyone else is right: promotion is important. Sharing the product here, on Facebook, Reddit, etc. are all fine ideas, and asking your co-workers to try it out will be a great step as well.

But you want to present the best possible version of the product to your co-workers, friends, and family. So ask your one user a couple questions, along the lines of:

* What do they like about using your product? What problem does the product solve for them?

* What do they dislike about using your product? (What problems does it create, or leave unsolved?)

Beyond that, make sure that the UI is good. Then start promoting by the ways that other people have suggested.

griffinmb
My first step after getting that one user was to "do things that don't scale". So I sent him/her a personal email letting them know I hoped they found the service helpful, and that I'd be happy to help out in any way possible. And to tell a friend.

No response yet!

mid0
. u already started by asking for help

- invite folks you know on an "sure to open your email/answer ur slack/im/sms" message and

-- invite folks you know little bit outside of that circle

--- invite folks in forums your' involved with (give/take)

--- invite folks on ur mostly active social media account

---- you can submit to betalist.com if it's beta private only

---- you can submit to producthunt.com if it's live and ready to be used

jay_kyburz
We are in a similar place right now. I'm looking forward to seeing what people have to say.

Blight of the Immortals only has about 50 daily active users. We would like to grow a little to get a better idea about what people like and don't like about the game.

https://blight.ironhelmet.com

We've run some Facebook and Google ads and it looks like it costs around 35 - 40c a click. We only get about 10% sign-up so we are paying about $4 a user. (From what I have read that's about what to expect)

We still have a lot of cool stuff to add, but we make about $2 per new account, so I guess that means we are about halfway there :)

griffinmb
I pretty much immediately dropped the idea of advertising without even looking into it, mostly because it's currently a completely free tool. But I didn't realize it was that affordable. I may actually look into that now!

Congrats on the 50 active users :)

Agustus
Let me give you my user experience and see if you can help us play your game more: About seven of us played a game of Blight of the Immortals in turn-based mode, namely because we all have jobs and would be unable to get to the devices appropriately. The turn-based functionality is an add-on that causes immense game issues where characters can be held for long periods of time in stun spells, sometimes because of recharge rates and other items indefinitely. That being said, we love the game, just the quirks of having the turn base sit on top of the real-time throws some wrenches in.

The items for you to take this up a notch are the following: 1. Update things from time to time to make it newer-ish. The game does not feel like it has changed any of the times that we have played it over the four years (has it been that long)

2. Turn based for the die-hard workers.

3. Figure out the Iron Key for paying to play for a period of time. That really worked out for getting us to have one person pay for a key and then we could all play. If a person wants to get new friends to start a separate game, then you have an in for a new key purchase.

4. Ask your users, send an e-mail out to everybody and ask them what their issues are. Ask those that love it to post on their facebook / twitter / etc.

jay_kyburz
Hey Agustus, Thanks very much for the feedback!

The new Blight of the Immortals is an all new game built on the ashes of the old game.

The game infact didn't change from about 2010 when I stopped working on it till just a few months ago when we opened up a beta of the new game.

We haven't reached out to the players of the old game because we're still fleshing out the content and adding new features. We've started doing a little advertising to see how well things like the home page and tutorial are working.

When the only traffic to the site is ads, you can get a good idea of how the game stands on its own.

The only way the game will be big "success" is if we generate enough cash to do paid user acquisition.

danielbarla
I'm not an expert, but a 10% sign up rate doesn't sound too bad. Also, depending on how you look at it, you could double your active users for $200 right now (or $100 if you make back $2 per account)? It sounds like a bit of a bargain, as those users will probably tell their friends, etc.

From my perspective, the game looked interesting, but I also had a bit of trouble figuring out what the gameplay would be like - I can kind of guess from the screenshots, but it's not really enough. The trailer (while very nicely done), didn't show anything from the game as far as I can tell, and the "play now" button takes you to a registration screen. I suspect this causes a lot of potential users to bounce right there - edge cases who might be persuaded to stay if the "play now" button just dropped them as anonymous into a game (and asked for their email a few minutes in).

pbreit
I'm not sure what exactly you mean by "hobby" project but if prospective got a whiff of such a thing, I suspect they'd pass. I would at least try to exude more seriousness about the product, unless it's a game or something frivolous.
griffinmb
That's a really interesting point. Maybe "hobby project" wasn't the best word choice. I just wanted to emphasize that I'm not looking for rocket-ship growth (or even money), just a way to slowly get users who will find use in my app.
pbreit
You can be very serious about something while not striving for rocket ship growth. "Hobby" makes it sound like you'd have no qualms shutting it down with a moment's notice which prospective customers can frequently detect and is obviously not compelling.
hayksaakian
I read a little bit about what your app does -- scan for open ports.

I think "native" promotion is the best. Figure out who your best customers could be and start watching ports on all their websites. Whenever one changes, send an automated email saying something like:

"We noticed a potential vulnrubility in your site, if you'd like to know if this happens again, reach out to me"

griffinmb
Thanks for taking a look at it! I like the idea of "native" promotion, and I think you just made me realize another problem I have -- I'm not actually sure who my best customers could be. I've just thought of it very broadly as "people with websites". I'll think more about that...
hayksaakian
rethink it as "people who care A LOT about having their website hacked"

maybe as the other commenter said, you don't send a million emails, instead you could do a twitter account or some other social media way to do it.

eropple
Do not do this. If somebody started running port scans against me and sending me unsolicited emails about "potential vulnerabilities," I'm marking it as spam and reporting them to their hosting provider if I can track it down. It's way too close to the "it'd be a shame if anything happened to your site" thing that companies I've worked for have gotten for comfort.
andrewchambers
one help would be to post a link so we can check it out.
tyingq
One strategy that sometimes works is to help people see the tie between your app/product and something else that's already popular.

One of the other comments here notes that your application does some kind of scanning for open ports. Assuming the application has some kind of integration...

That might be easy to link to, for example, Docker. A blog post showing how to "automate security validation for newly created containers" might have a broader audience that just "port scanning". Especially if you provide working code, and some path to integrate more than just your app.

Grue3
I have the same problem, my project is extremely niche and I hoped it would spread by word of mouth. I don't really use social media, so I don't self-promote it. The big boost came when I posted my project on a specific subreddit and it got a large number of upvotes. However the wave of users died off quickly and a year later I get like 10 users per day and maybe once per month it gets mentioned somewhere on the Internet.
lazyant
I also wrote a few years ago an "nmap as a service" tool, had some challenges like false positives, how to authorize automatically, slowness, UDP ports, using different origin IPs in case I was blocked etc. OP email me if you want to exchange notes.
griffinmb
That would be great! I'm at work now, so I'll shoot you an email tonight (I'm assuming it's the one in your profile?).
threesixandnine
Is the app you are talking about the one in your profile? If so I personally think it's great. I am sure you will find few more users now that you posted here.

If I were you I would personally go to small-mid-big biz in your area and pitch them this tool. I know that Internet is the thing but real money and connections are offline....just a hint....

griffinmb
That's the one! I'm glad you like it :)

I think talking to businesses personally would be great, but I wouldn't even know where to start with that. Do you have any suggestions? (books, articles, personal experience?)

threesixandnine
You just have to do it. Either be bold and go straight to their doors or schedule 5 minute meeting with person in charge. Try to get the meeting with people with budgets and not with us monkeys that run their equipment for peanuts ;)

There is no silver bullet for this and while books and articles can be of help it will never describe what you do and feel once you are before people you are pitching your product. You have to overcome any issues with that yourself. You just have to do it. I am still sometimes anxious so don't worry. It's normal...

People will tell you to post on the Internet but they know jack shajt. You will get freeloaders and hardly any feedback from those users. Once you land 3 serious biz users those are gold mines. Better spend the time and $200 for a dinner with them.

onnnon
You need SSL for starters...
tmaly
if it is something any regular person on the street would use, get some business cards focused on the application with the website and start handing them out.

Who is your one user? Do they fit any particular category? Ask them if they have friends that would use your software.