Ask HN: How to sustain project with steadily increasing active users?
I launched the private beta of http://handpick.me about 2 weeks ago on Hacker news:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2949117
After being covered by 3 blogs, the number of users has grown steadily, with a good handful of active daily users.
In the event that the copy on http://handpick.me is unclear, Handpick offers you a bookmarklet or Chrome extension where you select which groups of folks you'd like to send a link to. Handpick will compile the links and send them in a single email digest at the time of the day you specify.
I think Handpick has a chance of making a dent in the universe and I love to wake up to emails from users who tell me how much they love Handpick when they suggest a feature or find a bug.
The app's running on a free Heroku plan with a free Sendgrid addon for sending daily email digests on links collected.
Right now, I'm uncertain how to proceed. I've been using Handpick myself with my friends for the past year and it seems like there are others who like this too.
I haven't started promoting Handpick at all as I'm worried that I wouldn't be able to support a sudden growth of users. I'd prefer not to pay for resources out of my own pocket yet.
Is there a way to monetize Handpick and yet maintain a high amount of respect for my users’ time, attention, and happiness?