Ask HN: What should I do with a product that I built but could not market?

Launch it as a single founder. If its ready, then there's no harm in seeing if your product can gain traction by itself. What's the worse that could happen? If it takes off, you won't need to ask people to come on board, they will be asking to join you.

Generally speaking, I've tried to stay away from messing with products or services that require a lot of marketing, and go with ones that tend to market themselves. General ideas (such as classifieds) have big potential, but require the most work to get sustainable traction.

With that said, building the product is half the battle. Put it up by yourself. The biggest question you need answered right now is what do random visitors to your service think of the overall concept? Any flavor of classifieds websites will have some kind of critical mass, but that wont stop a few visitors from making an attempt at using it. If you get some positive feedback, or even negative, use it. If it's positive, it will go a long way in finding a valuable partner. It will give you hard data to share that will start to pave a path for you.

The problem with splitting a pie that hasn't been baked is that nobody knows what the flavor will be. You may be a great baker but the consumers are the ones who will inevitably decide your offering (Apple).

Once you get a basic data set from those few visitors you were able to convince to at least give your service a glance, now it's time to grow your inventory. The best things you can do as a lean start-up is find some mutual business relationships. Can car dealers post some of their inventory on your site? If so, they would love to do it and it gives you a little bit of content. There are many other similar circumstances you can find yourself in. I find it most effective when you can get other businesses to sell your product for you because it enhances their own.

To get back to the root answer here, my suggestion is do a solo soft launch. Gather usage data from early visitors, and use it to grow your inventory and perhaps more importantly, find a valuable partner.

Some ideas:

Could you turn it into a white label app and sell it to businesses for their own internal use or to other entrepreneurs?

Could you find a niche that needs this sort of app with certain features tailored to their needs. Example: Auction software (general idea) made specifically for buying/selling live aquarium fish (custom/niche).

If you are selling a product that someone buys for themselves, not for their company, then it is a consumer application. However, since you are running a classified you are actually in the consumer-to-consumer model though some of its practitioners call this the "two-sided marketplace" which sounds snazzier. Admittedly, there are some differences from other kinds of advertising, but by and large advertising is mostly the same, so the same techniques used from other advertising cross over.

The first thing to remember is how you make money. You make money by getting together buyers and sellers. You are expected to get out of the way and let them get to their business. However, in order to have any hope of success you have to attract buyers and sellers, so they have to know your there. You must differentiate from your competition loud and clear. So how do you do this?

Research has shown that the most successful commodity products differentiate themselves in one of two ways. Either by low cost or by having the best reputation for quality or service. Advertising can help you spread the news about any price advantage you may have, and it can work wonders in creating a reputation for quality or service. And if it works for bolts, washing machines, and lawyers, why not for your classifieds? If your headline doesn't mention that you are cheaper, provide high quality or great service, then I advise you to change that. This will immediately work and create more traction, enough true data at least, so that you can start measuring it with your metrics tools and make it grow.

If you find yourself that you need a hand with your startup, you can send me an email at ulisesrmzroche@gmail.com or go to ulisesrmzroche.github.io to learn more about me.

Am I right to assume that you can technically handle the idea on your own? If that is the case I would launch and try to get some people to use it(I know that it sounds easier than it is). If these people really like it, there's a chance that it could take off on its own without any significant additional promotion.