They've put together a very comprehensive list of places to post your startup, and some will certainly be relevant to just side projects etc. Depending on what you're looking to showcase.
This will certainly be one source I'll look to, for what I launch my side project.
Any tips on starting a newsletter? Or resources on landing pages, the newsletter design or mailing platform? Or anything you wished you knew before you started? :)
Wow, this would be a huge comment if I tried to tackle each of these topics! Also, it's only been about 2 months since I officially started e-mailing so take what I say with a grain of salt :)
I will say that It's been a valuable exercise to e-mail every unsubscriber and ask why they left.
The number one reason people leave is because they don't want to get an e-mail every day. We now offer a weekly recap email because of this feedback, and I've actually had people return to the list who had previously left.
Sending an e-mail to someone is a privilege. Especially a daily e-mail. In my opinion our time/attention is one of the most precious things we have.
I want the reader to be able to read and comprehend the opportunity in under 30 seconds and leave feeling like the e-mail had a positive impact on their day.
If you're looking for any advice in specific, get in touch, I'm always happy to help :)
Show HN is good for technical feedback, but often HN won't match up well with the target audience. An example where this comes up is when HN commenters complain about how they never read email newsletters so the sign up form / email required / create an account step is a "complete waste of time" (but email works!).
The most effective approach to actually getting customers is to build a reputation as a problem-solver within the specific, related niche communities and then offer the new tool as an alternative solution to problems. Most people posting HN front-page follow-up note how the wave of traffic doesn't typically convert well.
If it's for a specific niche, probably best to contact newsletters or news sites about that niche, and try to get them to feature it, that's better than showing something to HN or similar sites. If you pick news outlets targeted at your subject area you get a specific audience who is already interested in your idea and is a much easier sell, and you might get far more useful feedback - you want to talk to potential customers ideally. You don't say what you want to showcase, it might help if you did as then people could give specific suggestions.
Don't know of any, would be interested in seeing one, I'm not so keen on Reddit but there is probably a subreddit. They do also have a forum but that's a different kind of thing.
If it's design-centric or technology that can helpdesigners, I'd suggest posting it on Designer News. The kind of designers on there varies, but I would say most are UI, product and front-end types.
That was posted over a year ago; since then, things have gotten even worse with regards to elitism and the fairness of the system (nowadays the name of the game is figuring out how to market your Product Hunt submission to your network of friends without explicitly asking for upvotes, unless you're famous/VC in which case you're allowed to be blatant). My original rant on the topic after the acquisition: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13080432
I've recently given up calling out the voting manipulation on Product Hunt because everyone calls me a buzzkill for doing so.
1. It was invitation-only when I tried to join it. No real complain here, it just didn't make sense for this kind of page and I don't like it.
2. Then a couple of projects of mine got to the front-page of HN and someone -- I am guessing an admin -- added them to Product Hunt with an email I never gave them which resulted in waves of SPAM.
I cannot stress the 2nd point enough. Imagine that you make a project, a random person re-publishes it in some network you were denied entering and now for every person who comments in there you get a low-quality email.
I don't understand I cannot stress [...] enough: someone [...] added them to Product Hunt with an email I never gave them which resulted in waves of SPAM
You do not use filters? Free feedback, straight to your inbox!
As far as I remember the feedback was a lot like cool project!, which is also nice but nothing compared with the previous front-page of HN as it was the same positive sentiment but with a lot of useful comments. About filters I use Gmail, so mostly use the stock ones which are good for bot SPAM, but not for user-generated comments.
I mean, not complaining or anything but I did not expect a beta signup page to get hunted. Didn't find out until three weeks later when I tried to submit the product.
well, it DOES list everything (in the 'new today' tab I think). But by default it shows the ranked list of products. In that sense, it works similar to HN where only top Show HNs are displayed in the homepage.
I made a Discord channel [1] for startups and entrepreneurs. The goal is to have a place to hangout, share ideas, and chat with similarly ambitious people. It's pretty new, but every time someone in there has posted their site people have checked it out and given feedback.
There was a discussion on the frontpage which can basically be summarized to "fuck classes, prototypes ftw!". It's like people haven't worked on big projects ever.
They've put together a very comprehensive list of places to post your startup, and some will certainly be relevant to just side projects etc. Depending on what you're looking to showcase. This will certainly be one source I'll look to, for what I launch my side project.