Creators Dilemma: What to do after you create a personal product? 
Tags: programming, javascript, react, java
Published: 2021-04-30 16:34:55

## Word of Caution
If you thought this post is my advice on what needs to be done after you have developed a product (app/website), you are going to be disappointed. 

I am myself a creator who is at a fix as to what needs to be done next after you have created something that you think is useful. 

I am not putting my app link in this post to make sure that it doesn't get degraded as self-promotion. This post is more about me ( or a creator ) asking for advice/help from more experienced folks out there.

## Bit of history

During the lock-down of 2020, I had an idea to create a simple and intuitive way of creating and discovering content based on shorts ( 30 seconds read). The idea was to present the crux of the topic using images and rich text as shorts and discover them using simple swipe gestures. 

I spend almost 8 months working on the backend ( Spring java microservices ), creator portal ( ReactJS ), and the app ( React native ). Now, I am primarily a backend developer and I learned to React and React native purely for the purpose of developing this project. 

The same is hosted in GCP with some monthly billing cost and also to provide an idea of what it is, I created over 200+ shorts on Java, Spring framework, React, Data structures, and almost all the things programming I know about. This took another 2 months. 

Even though I used the term "product", I am envisioning this as more of a platform for the experts to create and the users to discover. I don't believe in running ads and would love to provide this as free for as long as I can financially support it. If it ever reaches a level of users where I can no longer support it personally, I plan to charge a nominal subscription so that I can present quality content and also provide a revenue stream to the top creators. 

## Now the Dilemma
Since this is not a cat video I shot and uploaded to YouTube, I didn't have the option to share it with friends and family to like and share.  

Of course, I can share this with my friends and family and they may say something nice about it and download it once, but that does not provide constructive feedback or momentum to the overall idea. 

As a developer, this where my skills end. I have built something from scratch that I believe is useful to my fellow developers or any learning aspirants, but I don't have a platform or place where I could actually showcase and publish. 

I tried online channels like Reddit and HackerNews, but all of them outright banned or rejected the posts saying that it is self-promoting and that I was not an active member of the communities. I totally agree with their stands as I have set rules for my platform, they also have their own. But wherever I was able to post ( some lesser-known programming reddits), there was a good response from the users and they found it really useful. 

Now the question is, what am I supposed to do at this point?. There is no point in spending so much personal time and money on something that doesn't have enough audience. The saddest part is that I am not able to reach the right audience. Whoever I managed to reach actually likes it but that percentage is pretty low. 

I know that this is not just my case, there are several others who are in the same position as me. I would really appreciate it if you guys have any general advice or can point me in the right direction or group where it makes sense. 

Regards, 
A weary fellow developer