Ask HN: How do you let people know your project exists?

Your project was made to solve some problem, you have to figure out who has that problem and how to reach them.

Start sending emails and reaching to those who have the hair on fire problem you're trying to solve.

I have found it helpful to approach your first customers from the mindset of a consultant... who happens to have most of the work done already. Take your pre-built software and integrate it to be a solution for your customers. You'll learn along the way what people really want from your product and after a few beta customers, your product will mold to fit what most people want to buy.

Create a great product that perfectly solves someone's problems. There's no substitute for creating a great solution.

Then, personally, there's the tried and true places to show your work:

1) Show HN

2) ProductHunt

3) Your own social media

4) Relevant subreddits

Note: This is primarily effective for showing free / open products. Think of it more as a way of getting feedback than closing sales.

Then, I can think of a few ways that could work to let people know your product exists (generic ideas that don't necessarily fit every product):

1) Attend conferences relevant to the problem or where your customers frequent

2) Attend meet ups relevant to the problem

3) Get referrals from friends and your network to potential customers (ask, do you know someone who works in ____?)

4) Cold emails -- and follow up with them even if there's no response. Often it takes 7 touches to get an answer (yes or no) and persistence works. Check out my friends at http://www.persistiq.com.

Note: Easier than it sounds. Marketing and selling are hard.

Before creating an app or web application you need to identify which need or problem you are trying to solve and for who, after knowing this, you need to create something that adds value to these people, and not only create something just to create. Remember that the people you target your project, are the one that are going to spend their time and maybe their money using your product, so it is important that you consider their opinions in the different circumstances that appear during the project development. So when your product is ready, it is an awesome product for your users, and this users can communicate (recommend)to their friends to use your app. Remember the most powerful way to let you know as a new app, business, service, etc. It's by recommendations, because as humans we trust more in what our friends and family say to us than what a blog can say. So remember to be recommended you need to add value to your early users.

So when no one is coming to you, what do you have to do? Go to people.

Reach out to your ideal users via cold email, social media, etc. with the thought of benefiting them in mind.

Share it – here on HN, Reddit, tech and startup sites (there are a few HN posts with lists of sites you can reach out to), with people you know, relevant forums, etc.

Identify the sort of person or company who has the problem your product is seeking to solve. Who are they? Where do they hang out online? What other things are they interested in?

Start writing stuff or creating giveaways that are of interest to those people. You are not writing about your product here, you are writing stuff that appeals to your target customer - hopefully with some sort of link to your product. You can share that content and/or free stuff far more easily than promoting the product as long as it is good quality.

An example:

My product is a CMS, built for web designers and front-end developers. Writing about content management in our product is great for our existing customers but is less likely to bring in new people. However if I write posts on my own sites or on other sites that are genuinely useful content for my target audience then those people are far more likely to go on and look at my product. So I write about CSS, workflows and so on - thinking about the things that our product does really well so I can throw in a quick mention, but not making the article about the product.

You have to be quite targeted about this, and it isn't a "quick fix" but it does work very well. People will share free useful content far more than they will share your landing page.