Only the marketing part of this "side" project feel like more than a full project to me.
Side Project Marketing Checklist
41–50 of 70 posts
Re: Side Project Marketing Checklist
#42Hello this list is too comprehensive and exhausting. Could somebody filter or sort this list by importance of each task? Ie you must absolutely do these tasks but if you skip these other tasks no big deal.
My goal with the list was to make something exhaustive. Your job as the project owner is to cull it down to the most important items based on your target market and goals.
Making the list was easy. Prioritizing it and executing are what makes or breaks your project.
Re: Side Project Marketing Checklist
#43I'm always unsure about marketing. I do think that the balance between the thing you're creating, and the marketing of it is a clean 50/50 split. Creating something great is extremely important, but telling people about it is equally so. One of biggest lies is "if you build it, they will come." You actually have to grab them by the necks, and show them what you've built. I think the second biggest lie is the opposite…
Maybe not 100% related to original story, but have you seen the article of Ryan Clark about marketing your indie game? It's by far the best one I came across with the best info as far as I know.
http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/RyanClark/20150917/253842/Wha...
Re: Side Project Marketing Checklist
#44I dislike this list. It's too much, and does not discern between effectiveness. It's like they are equally weighted tasks. This is absolutely not the case.
Half of this is common sense, 'make an about page, make a contact page', that is basic...
Then there's a ton of stuff here that is hypothetically cool to do but practically speaking will not be productive.
As a marketer I can tell you that there is some pareto optimization that can be done here. It's likely, I think, if you did this whole checklist that you'd find 20% of your efforts ended up bringing in 80% of your conversions. The trick is finding what that chunk of extremely lucrative marketing activities are for your product/industry.
Re: Side Project Marketing Checklist
#45I dislike this list. It's too much, and does not discern between effectiveness. It's like they are equally weighted tasks. This is absolutely not the case. Half of this is common sense, 'make an about page, make a contact page', that is basic... Then there's a ton of stuff here that is hypothetically cool to do but practically speaking will not be productive. As a marketer I can tell you that there is some pareto opt…
It is intentionally too much. My goal with the list was to make something exhaustive. The hard part - the reason companies have whole marketing departments - is to prioritize and execute on it.
There's definitely some common sense stuff here, but for devs who are marketing their first side project, it might be helpful to have more rather than less.
Finally, I welcome PR's on the project! It's open source and I'm looking for collaborators to help improve it. I'm a dev, not a marketer, so I'd love an industry pro to improve it.
Re: Side Project Marketing Checklist
#46I dislike this list. It's too much, and does not discern between effectiveness. It's like they are equally weighted tasks. This is absolutely not the case. Half of this is common sense, 'make an about page, make a contact page', that is basic... Then there's a ton of stuff here that is hypothetically cool to do but practically speaking will not be productive. As a marketer I can tell you that there is some pareto opt…
It is intentionally too much. My goal with the list was to make something exhaustive. The hard part - the reason companies have whole marketing departments - is to prioritize and execute on it. There's definitely some common sense stuff here, but for devs who are marketing their first side project, it might be helpful to have more rather than less. Finally, I welcome PR's on the project! It's open source and I'm look…
I like it. I'm in the process of putting together a marketing strategy for my SaaS product (https://usebx.com) right now, and this gives me some really good ideas to pick and choose from. Thank you :)
Re: Side Project Marketing Checklist
#47Marketing is a must for an idea to become a successful business. However most side projects are much more about learning and exploration.
It's easy to get excited about our side project and make it real. But that's a long way ahead. Pursuing it as a side project is impractical. Not only it requires more time than we have. But also we have to spend more time on things like marketing than the fun stuff that initially led us to start the project.
I'd go so far as make it an explicitly non-goal to make profit when starting a side project. You will have more fun and there will be wider range of ideas you can explore.
Re: Side Project Marketing Checklist
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
"6 days ago"... I'm not sure about HN rules, but isn't this submission considered a repost?
Reposts aren't considered bad automatically; sometimes a story didn't get the traction it deserves, wrong time of day or competing stories crowd it out.
okay, but in this case the original got ~600 points, which surely counts as "the traction it deserves"
Re: Side Project Marketing Checklist
#49I dislike this list. It's too much, and does not discern between effectiveness. It's like they are equally weighted tasks. This is absolutely not the case. Half of this is common sense, 'make an about page, make a contact page', that is basic... Then there's a ton of stuff here that is hypothetically cool to do but practically speaking will not be productive. As a marketer I can tell you that there is some pareto opt…
It is intentionally too much. My goal with the list was to make something exhaustive. The hard part - the reason companies have whole marketing departments - is to prioritize and execute on it. There's definitely some common sense stuff here, but for devs who are marketing their first side project, it might be helpful to have more rather than less. Finally, I welcome PR's on the project! It's open source and I'm look…
It's a great list. And I love the little inspirational quotes above each section. I think the "common sense" items should stay, since what is common sense to one is not always common sense to another.
But akin to what others have said, it's not a checklist! I think I'd need 2 additional full-time staff on my side project working on nothing but this to implement it.
To make it more specific to side projects I think it could use a preliminary strategizing paragraph. E.g., if you only have 2 hours / week to devote to marketing, here's how to use this list...
Re: Side Project Marketing Checklist
#50I dislike this list. It's too much, and does not discern between effectiveness. It's like they are equally weighted tasks. This is absolutely not the case. Half of this is common sense, 'make an about page, make a contact page', that is basic... Then there's a ton of stuff here that is hypothetically cool to do but practically speaking will not be productive. As a marketer I can tell you that there is some pareto opt…
I don't view it as a 'do everything on the list' checklist. Instead, I see it as a list of options and you check the those that apply to your project. From this you generate your own tailored project checklist.