u/Emergency-Pack2500

I’m building Moonshoot solo.

the basic mechanic is:

384,400 km to the Moon.

1 person = 1 permanent km.

68 people from 31 countries have claimed one so far.

that was enough to expose the next problem:

most people push once and leave.

so I just shipped a new experiment called Fuel.

every user gets 1 fuel per day.

you can’t use it on yourself.

you have to give it to someone else’s km.

the 3 most fuelled kms from yesterday get featured at the top the next day.

if someone joins through your link, both of you get +1 fuel that day.

the thing I’m trying to prove now is not “can I make people click every day?”

it’s:

can a daily mechanic actually create discovery, traffic and value for someone else?

if it only increases activity, it’s useless.

if boosted projects start getting real clicks and attention, then maybe there’s something here.

that’s what I’m measuring now.

I’m building a weird little internet experiment solo and I’m at 59 users.

the mechanic:

384,400 km to the Moon.

1 person = 1 km.
1 push each.
your km stays yours permanently.

the first challenge was getting strangers to push.

now I’ve realized the harder problem is:

how does user #59 create user #60?

I have basically no acquisition budget, so I’ve been experimenting with product mechanics instead:

country competition
permanent ownership
shareable boarding passes
milestones
scarcity around km #100

one Reddit comment actually made me realize I was probably overthinking it.

the first 100 names are going to the stratosphere on a real balloon, and I was barely talking about that.

so now I’m wondering if the growth loop should be much simpler:

“I got in early. there are only 41 spots left.”

for people who’ve grown something from almost zero:

what would you test next?

scarcity?
competition?
referrals?
something completely different?

building Moonshoot solo has been teaching me something obvious:

getting someone to try a product once is not the same as giving them a reason to bring the next person.

Moonshoot is a simple challenge:

384,400 km to the Moon.
1 person = 1 km.
1 push each.

we’re at 46 km now.

the problem:

after you claim your km, why would you care anymore?

so i added a country race.

now every push also counts for your country.

for example:

Georgia is tied #3.
1 more push draws level with Germany.

now the idea isn’t only:

“this is my km.”

it becomes:

“my country is behind, come push.”

maybe that creates a real sharing loop.

maybe nobody cares 😄

but that’s what i’m testing now.

moonshoot.lol

I made ClickClaps. The idea: someone posts a challenge ("draw my dog as a knight," "do something nice for a stranger today," "build the dumbest possible app in an hour"), someone else takes it on, proves they did it with a photo, and then the community votes for 24 hours and claps for the ones that landed.

Anything goes: silly dares, creative prompts, maker challenges. No money involved. The reward is purely social, like old Reddit gold but for doing something instead of just posting.

I seeded it with ~50 challenges myself to set the tone, because an empty feed is a dead feed.

Stack is nothing exotic: Next.js, Supabase, Cloudflare R2 for the proof photos. The hard part wasn't the code, it was getting both sides to show up at once.

The thing I genuinely don't know: does a non-monetary reward hold attention past the novelty? Honest feedback wanted, especially if you think the premise is flawed. Link in comments so this isn't just an ad.

Building ClickClaps in public: a place where people post fun challenges (dares, creative prompts, maker stuff), someone takes one on, proves it with a photo, and the community votes for 24 hours and claps for the winners. No money, the reward is social.

The build was the easy part (Next.js, Supabase, R2). The real problem is the one every two-sided thing has: nobody posts challenges if nobody attempts them, and nobody attempts them if there's nothing to do.

So I did the unscalable thing and seeded ~50 challenges myself to set the tone. Feels like cheating. Apparently it's just what you do.

Still unsure whether a non-monetary reward holds attention once the novelty fades.

If you've launched a two-sided product, how did you handle the cold-start? Seed it, fake it, or grind one side first?

Ran a web agency for 2.5 years. Decent client work but writing about my own projects was always the weakest part. Would ship features all week and never write blog posts.

Built a tool to fix it for myself. AI reads my repo, learns my style, opens blog post drafts as PRs I can edit and merge. Use it daily. Ship 3 blog posts a week now instead of one a month.

The hard part: nobody else is using it.

3 things I'm learning at zero users:

1. "I built it for myself" isn't validation. I assumed the same need would exist in other technical founders. The need is real. The willingness to try a new tool for it is not.
2. Building in public brings impressions, not users. X and LinkedIn posts get views but no signups. Different content, different funnel.
3. Google won't save you fast. New domain, blog posts aren't indexed yet. SEO is a 6-month bet at minimum.

Current move: cold DMs to specific founders who blog publicly but inconsistently. Not scalable, but it's the only way I can have real conversations about whether the product actually fits.

Anyone else stuck in the "built it, use it, can't get others to use it" phase? What broke the seal for you?

Just venting and looking for honest takes from people further along than me.

Built two products. One is a link-in-bio SaaS with 200 users, mostly silent. The other is Branchpost, a tool that reads your GitHub repo and opens AI-written blog post PRs. I built it because I'd skip writing about my own projects for months.

The painful part: I use Branchpost daily. Ship 3 blog posts a week with it now. Zero other users. Google hasn't indexed the blog posts yet either, so the SEO play isn't kicking in.

Tired. Not quitting, just tired.

If you've been here and pushed through, what actually moved the needle? Cold DMs to specific users? Reddit/IndieHackers posts? Switching positioning?

I’ve been working on a project called Branchpost.

It connects to your GitHub repo, learns your blog structure, and opens AI-written blog post PRs.

Technically, it works.

But here’s the problem:
I launched it and… almost no one cares.

I realized I made the classic mistake:
built first, didn’t validate demand.

Now I’m trying to understand:

• Do devs even want automated blog writing?
• Or is writing not painful enough to solve?

Curious how you’d approach this:

If you had this product, how would you get your first 10 users?

I write posts as MDX in my Next.js repo (frontmatter, components, the whole thing). Love that it's version-controlled and lives next to the code, but the actual writing loop feels worse than it should:

- Switching from "coding brain" to "writing brain" kills momentum

- Frontmatter drift — I forget which fields are required until the build fails

- Cover images / OG images are a whole side quest

- I have a list of post ideas in Notes that never become posts

Curious how others handle this. Do you batch-write? Use a CMS on top? Just push through it? Or does everyone eventually give up and move to Substack/Ghost?

(Asking because I've been stuck on the "ideas in Notes → actual post" step for months and I'm trying to figure out if it's a me problem or a workflow problem.)