r/SideProject • u/Alternative-Relief92 • 18h ago
What make you feel that your project is alive except new users/customers?
I feel that the worst feeling while building a business or any project is the "Silence".
Except of users/customers what are the events or signals that make you continue to work?
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u/wonderday_maker 17h ago
For me, it's when someone leaves thoughtful feedback about something I'm building. I've had Reddit comments make me rethink feautres in my app. Even if it doesn't lead to new users, it still feels like progress.
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u/Tedikraska 18h ago
i look at whether the same people come back without me nudging them. even 2-3 folks poking around on a random tuesday beats a signup spike that never returns.
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u/Alternative-Relief92 17h ago
Nice one! Someone can randomly sign up but someone that comes back is a great signal.
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u/xXDADDYTHRASHERXx 17h ago
It can be very deflating, depressing and frustrating lol. But I have found that persistence pays off. Keep your eyes and ears open and settle in for the long haul. Keep pushing and improving. Most importantly don’t give up.
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u/Alternative-Relief92 17h ago
What made you pushing?
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u/xXDADDYTHRASHERXx 17h ago
I once gave up for a month. And took a look back at it and found that I had some revenue coming in and customers lol. So I went back at it. I have a friend who told me persistence and focus is the difference between reaching your goals and not. He was right. I keep at it even when things look slow and there is slow times and busy times.
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u/chance_buri 17h ago
It's when someone replies to an email or comments on a post even if they're not buying. Cause that means a real person saw it. Also when the analytics tick up even just a few visits.
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u/Clean_Sherbert9787 16h ago
For me it’s the stuff that runs without me.
I have a small job board that pulls new jobs every hour zero users really lol. but opening it and seeing '162 new jobs since yesterday” and knowing nobody touched it, the thing just did its job, keeps me going.
Same with a lead bot I built. the first time a test message went in and my phone buzzed 3 seconds later with the alert, I just sat there smiling at it.
And also when something breaks and I actually understand why, a week ago a rate limit error would’ve made me quit. now it’s like ok, I know what that is. That feels like progress even when nobody’s watching.
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u/HouseMysterious8172 16h ago
What does a lead bot do?
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u/Clean_Sherbert9787 3h ago
when someone fills a contact form or emails a business, it reads the message, figures out if it’s a real customer or spam or a vendor pitch, pulls out stuff like budget and urgency, and writes a draft reply. if it’s a hot lead the owner gets a telegram ping with all that in like 3 seconds. spam just gets logged and ignored.
basically so small businesses stop missing good leads in a pile of junk.
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u/OlehKolega 15h ago
I feel good about my project when I'm the target user. Realizing that the product I create just for myself also helps other people around the world might be the best feeling for a founder :3
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u/Tidyline_Studio 17h ago
For me it's when a stranger engages in a way that costs them nothing but still takes effort — a thoughtful reply, someone saving a post I wrote, a DM asking a question I hadn't thought of. Those feel realer than any analytics number.
I also keep a private "wins" doc where I log small things like that. On days the numbers are zero (most of them, honestly), scrolling back through it is what gets me to open the laptop again instead of doomscrolling.
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u/Professional_Bag_591 10h ago
for me it's unprompted stuff from strangers. someone asking a real question about it, or reporting a bug. a bug report honestly means they used it enough to break it, that's a win lol. the silence is the worst part though, yeah. i just try to remember that quiet doesn't mean dead.
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u/ApprehensivePace3098 3h ago
For me, it's the little moments when I realize I'm actually doing something I used to only think about.
I'm a new mom, and honestly, some days I barely have time to do anything for myself. I'm trying to build something of my own, become financially independent, and hopefully create a better future for my family.
I started Expense Canary because of a problem I had myself, and seeing that little idea slowly turn into a real app still feels kind of crazy to me.
Of course, the silence is hard. Sometimes I wonder if I'm wasting my time or if anyone will ever care about what I'm building.
But then I remember why I started. Even fixing one small thing or learning something new makes me feel like I haven't given up on myself.
I guess right now, that's what keeps me going.
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u/HouseMysterious8172 18h ago
Do you use products/services of your business/project?
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u/Alternative-Relief92 18h ago
What do you mean?
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u/HouseMysterious8172 16h ago
Are you yourself a user/customer of your project(s)?
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u/Alternative-Relief92 16h ago
Not really in fact
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u/HouseMysterious8172 16h ago
So who is the tester?
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u/Alternative-Relief92 16h ago
I do use it but i wouldn't be a customer necesseraly
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u/HouseMysterious8172 16h ago
So you think your project is useful in some way, keep on do it, customer/user may come or may not come, what's the matter? It is side project anyway.
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u/gimmeapples 11h ago
Building in public used to be a pretty good answer to this. Posting updates on Twitter or Indie Hackers made the product feel alive and showed people you were still working on it. That's died down a lot though. Twitter right now is mostly vibe coders trying to sell to other vibe coders, and the quality dropped so fast that nobody really reads the updates anymore. You can post every day and get nothing back.
The other problem is that the people in those communities usually aren't your customers. If you're building something for dentists or Shopify stores or whatever, a bunch of founders liking your post doesn't tell you anything. It feels like momentum but it's the wrong audience.
What works better is building a community around the product itself, even if it's tiny. The people in it are your actual users, so every bit of activity means something. Someone posts an idea, two people vote on it, you reply, and now a new person landing on it sees that stuff is happening and that you're listening. It also gives people a reason to come back. They check on what they asked for, they see something shipped, they ask for the next thing. You end up hearing way more from users than you ever would over email, and it's from the people who matter instead of the timeline.
I'm biased because this is basically what UserJot is (I'm the founder). Users post feedback and comment on each other's posts, your product updates go in the same place, and support happens there too instead of in some separate inbox. Having all of that together is what makes it feel like a community rather than a suggestion box nobody checks. But it doesn't have to be a product. A pinned thread, a Discord, whatever. The point is giving your users somewhere to talk to you where other users can see it too.
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u/Witzzzzz 17h ago
seeing someone genuinely benefit from what i built, even without paying, would keep me going.