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Comment by WA | Hacker News Reader

> I suspect that some of that is the effort to build and launch something that can reach broad adoption is harder.

No, it's just that getting attention is a lot harder. Side projects – by its very nature – are exactly that: Some stuff happening on the side and the trash can is an even more certain path than for most startups.

Without any visibility, side projects won't turn into companies. This doesn't mean that there are no side projects. There are probably more than ever, because everybody tries to get into the startup hamster wheel with their little idea.

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Right, everyone is still experimenting on the side now especially because those little ideas are the best route to autonomy. And if you have a wide breadth of skills in the field, a startup is often the only way (I've found) to finally gain the freedom to use all of them.

> if you have a wide breadth of skills in the field, a startup is often the only way (I've found) to finally gain the freedom to use all of them.

That's a great point, and is a major factor that led me into startups. Doing a startup is the only time I've ever had a job that feels like my time is not being wasted. With everything else I feel under-challenged, under-utilized, and pigeonholed.

Same! When either building something myself or with under 5 people I've been able to use all my knowledge and truly stretch myself. But I've also worked at a "startup" with the wrong people in charge, where I was completely under-utilized and couldn't get challenging work despite asking for it. The chance for fulfilling work though, I think, is the biggest draw.

If anything I think getting attention has become much easier compared to say 5 years ago. You used to have to go to Techcrunch and their friends to get covered or your project would never have any other means of getting significant attention for the launch. Nowadays sites like HN and Product Hunt provide pretty much democratized way of getting attention for your projects. On the other hand, getting meaningful adoption has indeed become harder, exactly because getting attention has become easier. There are too many projects and startups launching everyday that even if you place 1st on PH or HN today, tomorrow people are onto the next shiny thing.

Product Hunt is really only "democratized" if you know someone who can post to the Featured list. For the rest of us, it's either the obscurity of the "Newest" list, or basically the same exact process as getting covered by someone at TC.

I second that PH is not "democratized" in any sense. It's just as--if not more--exclusive than TC. Though I think Ryan may have started with good intentions, PH is now more of a "we control PH, we control the valley, and if you're not part of our exclusive club best keep your tinkerings to yourself".

With that said, who'd be interested in making a more democratized version of PH? Where we share together our own creations and help promote them with eachother? Kind of like r/entrepreneur but more focused. Could be cool. PM me.

Let's not battle with semantics. There are more venues to get exposure nowadays and the gatekeepers at these venues have much less power than the ones that came before, hence more democratized than 5 years ago.

It's not "semantics" if the end result is the same, which is that you need to beg certain gatekeepers to give your product exposure. The fact that there are more of those gatekeepers now doesn't mean the process is more "democratized."

Can't believe I keep feeding you guys stuff so I can get even more downvoted, but this almost feels like talking to a wall. This is my last comment on this thread because I know you'll probably say I'm wrong again, but I'll try my best to explain. 5 years ago if you built a cool project or startup you would pitch TechCrunch, Mashable, etc. (a handful of sites), and that was it. Most likely it would have been ignored. Then there's not much you can do. Nowadays there's room for creativity. You can even reach out to people on Twitter via @messages and get their attention. That didn't exist before. Also you guys make it sound like getting through the Product Hunt "gatekeepers" is some mission impossible but that only means you haven't tried, because if you tried you would know that they are also people just like you and want to share cool products. My point is, in the past, unless you spend lots of money you had little power over whether your project gets attention or not. Nowadays if you're on HN complaining about how it's same as back then, you're probably doing it wrong. There are tons of ways you can get exposure for your projects and you're not trying hard enough or not being creative enough if you're saying it's the same.

The absolute number of venues where you can get attention has increased, but the number of projects competing for that attention is increasing faster. The amount of attention available per project goes down.

If you launch a product for Non-English people, there is no HN and no PH.

Even if you launch a product in English, there's HN, there's PH and that's about it. You better have another way to reach an audience, because HN & PH are one-shots – especially if you just try a thing or two marketing-wise for your side-project, but don't spend too much time and money on marketing.

Those I mentioned are just a few. You have Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, and all kinds of social media where you can get exposure, which didn't exist several years ago. You really had to chase journalists at conferences, buy a PR firm to reach out to them, get an intro to these guys, or just send a cold email and hope for the best. Now at least you can control your own destiny.

Having built and launched 2 products that started as side projects, I know how difficult it is to get visibility. The avenues you mention are long shots considering the sheer number of things that get posted on those mediums. You get lost in noise faster than you can hit refresh. What you need is evangelists. People who noticed your product and were "socially influential" enough to spread it to a significant number of your target audience. That is a rare occurrence.

Everyone who's downvoting or criticizing me is basically saying "yeah whatever, but it's easier said than done", and that is totally true. But you guys are missing my point, I'm saying objectively there are more avenues for exposure than before. 10 years ago, you really had to use PR agencies and send out press releases, do analyst briefings, and nurture relationship with journalists in order to get the word out. There really weren't many other ways to do this. If you were a small startup it was very hard to get exposure (and like you say, you need evangelists, but even that was harder in the past simply because small startups had no easy way to get the word out) Compare that to nowadays, you're playing on very much level field. There's a big difference between "it's not so easy although it's possible if I try hard enough" vs. "it's virtually impossible".

I see your point that there are more avenues available than before but more avenues != easier to get your product noticed. I think that's where others and me disagree with your premise. I employed all those avenues to promote my 2 products. Anecdotal evidence from end is that a post on HN by someone with high karma still got me all of 200 visits to the website. Getting on the Featured List on PH got 2 signups and 50 upvotes and a total of 156 visits to the website. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ combined totaled 300+ visits to the website.

OK, let's imagine for a second we're in 2006. Where do you think you would have gone to pitch your projects? Basically I'm asking where else you would have gotten your 200 visits to the website, 2 signups and 50 upvotes and a total of 156 visits to the website, and 300+ visits to the website.

Niche forums.

Funny, because that's exactly how my business started in 2006. I posted it in a niche forum.

How does this relate to my point?

Have you tried affiliates?

I feel getting a megaphone has become considerably easier - try putting up anything on, say, betalist, and you'll get dozens and dozens of bots tweeting at you, offering free megaphones.

Now getting _attention_? I feel everything is competing with autoplay videos on Facebook now. Microseconds of mindshare.

fred's point is that competing for attention these days feels like you have to build broader, which is something you see a lot and probably contradicts the one secret weapon startups possess, focus.

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