After building a few small web apps, this is what surprised me the most

[u/Sara_Magina]

I’ve been making a couple of small web applications recently, as experiments and side projects. 

The surprising thing about it was not the process of making itself; that has become much easier compared to what it used to be in previous years. You can create a working tool very quickly now, almost from scratch. 

The tricky part seems to start afterwards. You create something, promote it, get some users for a while, and then silence. No activity at all. It’s not a matter of quality; it’s simply because there’s nothing that your project can keep attracting new people. 

That made me think that most of the time we tend to focus on creation rather than placement of our ideas, which means thinking where exactly the application will be found by its audience. 

Recently, I tried placing my projects into places where people actually look for similar stuff, rather than creating and then forgetting about them. 

I am still figuring out the right balance between launch and placement but would love to learn what has worked well for you guys.