This happens all the time, it’s a good thing to really keep in mind. All of my best projects were dismissed initially and continue to be. There is a reddit post where I announced Blockheads to a handful of “looks like a crappy Minecraft ripoff” comments. It went on to be played by 50 million people.
What the actual f. I am one of those 50 million people, played Blockheads all the time as a teen and had no idea I would randomly stumble over the dev around here. Great work indeed, thanks for the fond memories I made on my 4th gen iPod touch, playing that game :)
Aw thanks! I always love to hear this, makes my day every time :)
If those announcement posts don't take off, how do you end up finding a community of users/players?
It’s different every time, but basically “marketing”. No matter where you are showing your stuff, it’s in a subset of the population, chances are HN won’t be buying your app subscription. You need to get it in front of your actual audience.
See also "Product Hunt". Oddly it's been about a year since I've noticed anybody who mistakes a Product Hunt launch for a marketing plan but that used to be endemic.