Ask HN: How do you stay motivated when creating content in a vacuum? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How do you stay motivated when creating content in a vacuum?

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I've started tinkering on a few web apps of my own in my free time. Currently I'm working on a bookmarking site a la Delicious or Pinboard. At first, working on features for myself was fun, but now I'm finding myself unmotivated with no active users. I have no delusions of grandeur; I never expected to get tons of users to sign up, but I hoped for few to impress and keep me going.

Whether it's about having no users for your app, no followers on twitter, or no readers of your blog, it's hard to stay motivated when you're creating content in a vacuum. How do you get past this?

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I ran into the same issues when I was creating a site, noodleshare.com. It was tough staying motivated, and in fact, i left it alone for about 3-4 months because of that. What ended up helping was getting positive feedback from the community, whether that was going to meetups or chatting online about the progress. What's funny is I ended up redesigning part of the site to help others keep up that drive. If you believe in it though, then find a partner that's a loud mouth and does nothing but chat about what you're doing. It's working for me!

I also disagree with fjw. "Keep creating content" is not the answer. You either need to refine what you have based on feedback and trends, or get out there and network more to let people know what's out there.

It's no fun creating in a vacuum. Don't make something and sit quietly hoping people will notice. No one owes you any attention.

Make a noise, shout out from the rooftops that you've built something, fake confidence if you have to.

The number of channels available to promote your stuff is unlimited now. Make some noise.

You've already put in enough time to make the site and if you really think that it can take off with more users, then keep creating content. If it's something you truly believe in and don't want to just let die out, then this should be motivation enough.

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