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Ask HN: How do you market Open Source Software?

5•Daniel-Pan•2h ago
We are planning to move our software from closed to open source, and we are looking on how we can market this product to reach our target market.

Btw: Its an alternative to Zendesk, Jira, and linear.

Comments

bbor•2h ago
Are you asking about marketing techniques as in advertising strategies, or are you asking about the underlying business model?

If the former: the README.md is by far the most important artifact, and specifically the first scroll or two. The call to action (installing/trying it out/clicking to your pricing page/whatever) should be clear and upfront and easy.

Having a website that uses popular doc rendering frameworks also help -- people will recognize the look and feel and feel somewhat assured. Tho I suppose a task planning app prolly has docs figured out.

Godspeed, and thanks for sharing your work with the world! We need it, and we appreciate it.

mandarinclips•2h ago
My approach:

1.Open source + polished README

2.Listed on directories like create.io

3.Added to awesome-rust

4.Did a Show HN post

That's all I've done so far. 60 stars currently.

andsoitis•2h ago
Why do you think your target market would change? I would have guessed the target market is the same, so marketing should be straight forward: same demographics but differentiating you from the pack and how it matters.
ThrowawayR2•2h ago
Being proprietary or open source should not affect your marketing at all. If transitioning to open source is primarily for marketing purposes, it is likely to backfire.

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