Ask HN: How do you get visibility if you're suuuuper bad at marketing?

Do super personalized outreaching

I've had a similar problem in my personal development journey.

I haven't solved it, but my experience has lead me to believe that building in public and blogging/vlogging your journey (why you started and what you learned) is promising. That type of content drives brand and product hype via views/engagement, helps you filter ideas (if your vlog is getting no traction, maybe not a great product?) and avoids promotional post rules in a lot of communities.

My new years resolution is to dial in my content driven development pipeline.

I’m a indie developer and do marketing for my products. Build in public is a good way because building becomes the content which is the hard part. If you have an idea of your ICP, then cold outreach on LinkedIn specially if you are building and have people following you and commenting on your post. Don’t rely only in just the posts. I recently deleted every post on my linkedin with the goal of starting building in public and following this method which is the answer to your question. I belong to a paid community of very successful bootstrapped business developers and this is what the top members do, granted they are very successful and paid people to write their content which can be time consuming.

I’m also pretty bad at marketing, so I’m still figuring this out myself.

What I’ve been trying recently is to treat “visibility” as a side effect of building, not a separate activity.

A few things that seem at least directionally helpful for me:

• Sharing my work-in-progress on social platforms — not launches, but the actual process: what I’m building, problems I hit, and how I solved them. This feels more like documenting than promoting.

• Writing about concrete technical or product decisions I made, especially when I had to compare different approaches or tools. Those posts sometimes get picked up organically because they’re useful on their own.

• Analyzing competitors carefully, then selectively submitting my product to directories or communities where similar tools already exist. I avoid mass submission and try to match the audience instead.

None of this has “worked” in a big way yet, but it feels sustainable and doesn’t get me blocked or downvoted. For me, that’s already a win.

Have you tried a Show HN post?

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You work to get better at marketing. That's it.

> If you were starting from zero today, how would you get the first 100 real users in a clean way?

Beg everyone I know. When that doesn't work, start Googling, pick up the phone and start calling people.

Another angle that works well when you have zero budget is partnering with small creators who already talk to your target audience. Not big influencers, micro-creators with a few thousand very engaged followers.

If you offer a simple performance-based deal (e.g., a small reward for each signup or free premium access for their audience), many will happily try your tool because there's no upfront cost for them. Give them a short demo, a clear value story, and a unique link so they can track referrals.

A single well‑matched micro-influencer can easily get you your first 100 real users. It could be a fastest ways to get distribution without spending money.

Here's what has worked for me on day 0:

What problem does your tool solve? Write a blog on "how to solve/do XYZ".

Share an easy and free way to solve the problem without using your tool. Then introduce your tool and share its advantages and drawbacks. Be genuine and honest, don't oversell it. Acknowledge alternative tools and solutions.

Quick tips on how to write well - https://codecrafters.io/blog/writing-for-developers

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Have you tried affiliate/influencer marketing? Influencers are kinda the polar opposite to developers, as far as putting yourself out there shamelessly is concerned. They don't have to force themselves to be extroverted. While most established influencers will require upfront payment, the ones building a following will be more amenable to taking a commission. The key thing obviously is to identify influencers who have established community trust in your ICP segment.