Stopped adding features to my Python library. Now I have to find actual users. This is harder.

Posted by No_Word_9097@reddit | Python | View on Reddit | 15 comments

For three years I kept adding features, polishing edge cases, writing tests. I told

myself I was just making sure it was ready. Honestly, I was procrastinating. Adding

features nobody has asked for is a comfortable way to avoid the part every engineer

hates: putting your work out there and getting judged.

A few weeks ago I decided to stop. No new features until I find actual users. So now

I'm doing the thing I'd been avoiding — writing articles, finding relevant threads,

trying to reach people who might actually have the problem the library solves.

Turns out this is harder than building the thing.

I don't know if this is a common experience or if I've just been particularly good at

avoiding it. If you've shipped something and found early users: what actually worked?

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Don_Ozwald@reddit

Doing pretty much anything to not talk about it. You are still procrastinating. Tell me. Why do you care if people use it?

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No_Word_9097@reddit (OP)

Thanks, that's a genuinely hard question. And the honest answer is: I care inconsistently.

I started this in my free time because I find it fun. Not "fun" like building a todo app — fun like: why did the workflow stop? why did those tasks disappear? You investigate, you find the bug, you make the system more robust. Painful, but satisfying in the way that only obscure distributed systems bugs can be.

My theory is: if I make a tool good enough that people actually use it, I'll have a steady supply of those problems to solve. And maybe — this is the dark plan — if some startup is already running on it and needs someone to work with it, being the person who built it might count for something. I'm terrible at interviews. Apparently I'm also terrible at selling things, including myself. But "we already use your library, want to come fix it?" feels like a door I might actually be able to walk through.

Honestly though, I think the easier outcome is: I try to promote it, get ignored, and that's fine too. At least I tried. The judgement of putting it out there is scarier than the failure. If nobody uses it, it's still useful for me. There are plenty of tools. What was I thinking. So silly.

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Don_Ozwald@reddit

I don’t care. You don’t seem to care about your work either. Why are you doing pretty much anything to not talk about it?

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No_Word_9097@reddit (OP)

Ah sorry, was trying to answer `Why do you care if people use it?` best I could, and maybe I enjoyed too much to reflect about it, completely understand you don't care, sorry sorry, why you will? this it's just my bullshit

Anyway, thanks a lot for the peer pressure!!! My current excuse for don't talk about it, it's tha tthis r/Python rules includes 'No showcase posts'. I am just collecting ideas for the showcase channel and others ways of promoting the stuff, and motivation, thanks again

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zzzthelastuser@reddit

bullshit, you can still explain what your library does. You don't need to link it or even tell us the name.

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Don_Ozwald@reddit

It’s most certainly a bot

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No_Word_9097@reddit (OP)

Thanks, that's a genuinely hard question. And the honest answer is: I care inconsistently.


I started this in my free time because I find it fun. Not "fun" like building a todo app — fun like: why did the workflow stop? why did those tasks disappear? You investigate, you find the bug, you make the system more robust. Painful, but satisfying in the way that only obscure distributed systems bugs can be.


My theory is: if I make a tool good enough that people actually use it, I'll have a steady supply of those problems to solve. And maybe — this is the dark plan — if some startup is already running on it and needs someone to work with it, being the person who built it might count for something. I'm terrible at interviews. Apparently I'm also terrible at selling things, including myself. But "we already use your library, want to come fix it?" feels like a door I might actually be able to walk through.


Honestly though, I think the easier outcome is: I try to promote it, get ignored, and that's fine too. At least I tried. The judgement of putting it out there is scarier than the failure. If nobody uses it, it's still useful for me. There are plenty of tools. What was I thinking. So silly.

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hitchdev@reddit

Nothing really worked for me. I did what you did and I wasnt able to gain any traction.

If it's just "x but faster" you can get organic growth just by sharing it but if it's something genuinely new that requires a shift in thinking then people want to hear about it from some programming influencers first or that "google recommends it".

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No_Word_9097@reddit (OP)

That's probably the most likely outcome, honestly. And the more I think about it — if I were in a position to evaluate new tools at work, why would I reach for something new with potentially plenty of rough edges?

I guess I'll keep using it, keep improving it, and post interesting use cases when I have them. Without expecting anything. Just for the sake of it.

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ThiefMaster@reddit

Why is your goal to find users for your library? You typically create a library because it is useful to YOU. So you add features YOU need, and maybe some that you think may be useful for others.

But your post sounds like you're creating a library for the sake of creating a library...

Anyway, just have it on GitHub and PyPI. Have a good README and some useful examples in the documentation. If it's useful for others, they will eventually find it and use it and maybe even contribute to it. Don't waste your own time on publicity.

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No_Word_9097@reddit (OP)

The motivation started at work, mostly when I changed jobs and had to solve similar problems with different tools and custom code each time. And because I genuinely found it fun to debug those issues.

But that kind of library needs users to grow. It needs real distributed systems and real workflows to surface real problems. Otherwise, just ony current work or hobby projects, it's going nowhere.

But on the other hand, do I actually want to deal with such problems? To be honest, the fun part is solving them, not dealing with them.

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cycloneash@reddit

How about you explain your package and what problem you're trying to solve? I for one are interested.

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No_Word_9097@reddit (OP)

I am afraid of doing hidden showcase and getting banned for life :-)
I am really good at self-sabotage.

But I guess I can say that I am just another engineer who doesn't know how to use Celery and wants to build their own library to distribute tasks.

The problem I am trying to solve is not the distribution itself, but all the painful stuff you have to deal with once it's actually working: concurrency control, scheduling, crash recovery, and monitoring. It won't be as performant as lightweight solutions — don't use it to distribute idempotent HTTP requests that need a response ASAP — but for complex workflows where you can't afford missing tasks or need to know exactly what's going on at 3am during a system crash.

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catcint0s@reddit

It is usually the other way around, you solve a problem and users will come.