Ask HN: I spent months building an app and now I don't know how to get users

"Start talking to your users as early as possible" - this is one of the most common advice from founders and investors. I didn't listen to it, I've built an app and now I don't know how to get users and validate my idea.

But let's start from the beginning...

It all started almost 2 years ago when inflation began to kick in. Prices of everything started to rise, from groceries and bills to rent. At the same time, salaries didn't keep up with inflation, and more and more people started to struggle financially. Many started using food banks to get through the month. Even for working people, it got harder and harder to keep up, especially for single parents. Some people even lost their homes because they couldn't afford to pay their rent anymore.

And that got me thinking: there should be a way for people to raise funds quickly in those dark moments when they need it the most, whether to keep a roof over their heads, pay bills, buy groceries, or cover educational expenses.

At some point, as I'm a developer, I came up with an idea for an app - an app that would enable people to raise funds by offering services to their community. Services like tutoring, babysitting, pet sitting, transportation, home repair, and various other tasks they could carry out after their working hours.

I believed that this could be genuinely helpful to many people so I started working on it. I called the app Taskwer. So, how does it work?

People who want to raise funds are called creators. They start by creating their campaigns, where they set their funding goal, share their story, introduce themselves, explain why they're raising funds, and what kind of services are they offering. Once their campaign is all set, they can launch it and share it with their friends on social media, just like on Kickstarter.

After the campaign is launched, creators can begin receiving orders from their supporters, discuss details, create customized offers, and more. On an agreed-upon date, creators would complete their tasks, the supporter would confirm that the task has been completed, and creators would get paid. They could receive payment in cash from their supporters, or if the service is paid by card, they could withdraw funds from the app. There are no fees on cash payments. And in case of any issues, there is a support system in place.

I knew that I should start looking for potential users as soon as possible, even before I started building the app, to understand what they really want and need. However, there was just one problem; I'm an introvert. I have a small group of friends, I work remotely, and I don't use social media like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or LinkedIn. As a result, I kept postponing reaching out to people. And there was always a new feature to add, or a bug to fix so that was always a good excuse. I ended up sticking to what I was comfortable with and avoided talking to people for as long as possible.

Now, I have an MVP, and most of the features have been implemented, but I have no users. I don't know if this idea is any good, is it something people would even want to use. I believe it's not a bad idea, but my opinion doesn't matter here; it's the opinion of potential users that matters. The lack of a network and the inability to get users made me feel voiceless, like I'm a complete nobody. Over the past couple of weeks there have been numerous times when I've thought about giving up on this project.

So I came here today to ask for your help. I don't have a marketing budget unfortunately. What would you do in my place? What would be the best way to get my first 10 users, get some unbiased feedback and see if this project is even worth pursuing?

Here's the link: https://www.taskwer.com

Hey, thanks for checking it out. Well, it's different from GoFundMe in a way that people don't have to ask for donations; many people don't like that. Instead, they offer services in their community. Also, supporters, on the other hand, get something in return for their contributions, which I believe would incentivize them to support campaign creators.

> there should be a way for people to raise funds quickly in those dark moments when they need it the most

gofundme

> an app that would enable people to raise funds by offering services to their community

Taskrabbit?

> creators can begin receiving orders from their supporters, discuss details, create customized offers, and more. On an agreed-upon date, creators would complete their tasks, the supporter would confirm that the task has been completed, and creators would get paid

Kickstarter, except kickstarter fronts the money which is often necessary for completion.

You have built a two-sided market. This is very difficult, because you need to recruit both sides of the market. And you need to convince them that you can handle money.

> I'm an introvert. I have a small group of friends, I work remotely, and I don't use social media like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or LinkedIn.

Unless you get a co-founder who does, or some sort of marketing lead, your chances of success are zero. Your best hope is to find some sort of community which needs this service and persuade them you can help. I think Kickstarter got started with comics and board games: raising money for printing costs. You will also need to decide what you want to do when the "community" who want to exchange money for "services" is sex workers.

Work out your route to market before writing any code, if you want to make any money.

Here's my 2 cents (I never did something like this so I don't know if it's good advice):

See if you can ask for feedback on forums online (like this one here, but maybe also reddit, you can also ping some accounts on the fediverse).

Explain what you did where people will see it (fb groups, discord servers, plain ol' forums).

Write blog articles on how you did this or that, and post the links here.

The classic two-sided marketplace is a chicken-and-egg situation.

Common advice is to synthetically boost at least one side of the marketplace to start the flywheel effect.