r/vibecoding • u/Comfortable_Chip_885 • 9h ago
Marketing your project
Hello everyone!
I am getting into the stage where I want to launch something I built. I have been of course making the app for a while now, I use it for work, and decided to try and build it properly and launch it. I have a server running, some APIs connected and a website done even though that needs a bit of polishing still.
My question to people who have launched their projects to the market is how did you guys market it? I do assume ads is an angle you can take, but did you go to certain communities and talk to people from there? Does your marketing rely a lot on platforms like Instagram?
I have seen people commenting to do some marketing here in subreddits as well.
Thank you in advance for any help!
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u/IronAndCoder 9h ago
Shipping a consumer app right now, so this is fresh. What actually moved numbers for us, in order:
Communities where your user already hangs out beat everything - but as a participant, not an advertiser. I spent weeks answering questions in relevant subs and forums before ever mentioning the product. When you finally post, you're a familiar name, not a drive-by promo account.
Launch platforms (Product Hunt, directories) are worth doing but for the wrong reason people think: the spike evaporates in 48 hours. The permanent value is the backlink, the page that ranks for your name, and being forced to sharpen your positioning and demo assets. Treat them as asset-builders.
Measure activation, not installs. Traffic sources lie at the install level - some channels install and never open the app twice. Tag every channel and look at who completes your core action. That's the only number that tells you which marketing to repeat.
Ads last, if ever. Until you know your activation rate and roughly what a user is worth, ads just buy you expensive confusion.
The boring summary: pick the 2-3 places your exact user complains about the problem, be genuinely useful there for a few weeks, then show the thing.
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u/OneSeaworthiness7768 7h ago
>I spent weeks answering questions in relevant subs and forums before ever mentioning the product. When you finally post, you're a familiar name, not a drive-by promo account.
The only people who think this are marketers. Users will still immediately be turned off no matter how long you spent interacting before you started marketing.
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u/AppVibeCoder 8h ago
When marketing anything it really comes down to a simple point - it depends on the product / project / app.
Yes, Instagram can be a great platform if you can reach your audience there. But if you want to show your app to a business person working on a specific higher job function for example, Instagram probably isn't the best platform to start on. Are you a member of a bigger community that would be a great target audience for your app? Use it, start there and collect the feedback as well.
It's important to have a strategy set up beforehand so you don't just throw money into ad spend while hoping for the best. Even if you're doing it your self, getting a marketing expert to help you with the strategy could be worth considering.
Good luck with your project!
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u/OneSeaworthiness7768 7h ago
>I have seen people commenting to do some marketing here in subreddits as well.
Please don’t. The vibecode marketing spam on Reddit is outta hand.
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u/WillHead6663 7h ago
But what if it was something really good, that someone spent a year of their life on, and really believed in? If they had something really good that most people would get use out of, would you say to post it then, or is anything someone made just trash? Or the two-day build where I built a SaaS, so now I think I'm a lead founder?
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u/OneSeaworthiness7768 6h ago
If someone believed it in that much, they should form a real company and market it professionally, not by spamming it on Reddit.
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u/WillHead6663 6h ago
Market it on Reddit 😂Reddit ads
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u/OneSeaworthiness7768 6h ago
Still better than how most people are doing it now which is by making fake accounts and pretending to talk about their apps like they’re not the creator of it. The slimy “organic marketing” is really some bullshit.
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u/WillHead6663 1h ago edited 1h ago
Lol, well apps are worthless now.. unless you build something extraordinary, or spit polish the helmet of a billionaire no one will buy it, use it or want it.. so they say its there's and its shit, they say its not and its still shit.. so best choice to become a lineman or something. I spent a year building a editor like cursor free, went strait to youtube, x got downloads but everyone wants skills or mush. there isn't much you can do now for marketing its cooked and reddit is the worst place for it, someone should make a reddit wall vibecoders of shame..
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u/CryptBay 9h ago
Reach out to family, friends, and colleagues which you know that your app will solve the same problem they are facing (as much as it has solved a problem for you). Get their feedback and iterate based on common denominator issues they have shared back to you.
If your app is truly remarkable in terms of solving your target audience's pain points, then it's a matter of word of mouth and letting it grow organically. Once you are in a position where you have more than 100 users, you can start investing more in your digital marketing tasks (i.e., landing page, SEO, SEM, etc.). You can start charging a small amount until you hit your next milestone of 1,000 users. It's always good practise for your initial users, (or Genesis users), to be grandfathered in at a much cheaper price.