I was building a social media platform with a special algorithm to make engagement better for new users and communities instead of being judged on the basis of followers and compared to larger accounts!!
(it was started on 9-sept-2026... v1 released on 3-oct-2026)
And today is Day 24 of building v2 version of it!
All its main core features are done!
The debugging is fixed, and everything is set!
Public testing is done.
Suggestions from users are implemented!
Almost all things are done.
And today is Day 24, so I was thinking, what should I do now??
In my previous posts, I got approximately 20+ suggestions, and I applied them all!
UI is polished.
Backend is working well.
Everything is working well, and it's free right now.
Also, its current stats are:
14 members
70 posts shared
4 communities
And I was thinking, what should I do now??
This was started by me! And... I'm thinking there are no more things to add or anything...
At this stage, IDK what others think, but I'm thinking I should leave this for now. Maybe I should post and seed some new topics, but...
I'm thinking there are a large number of topics! Still... I'll try.
So, should I leave this project now? Like, maybe give some updates in the future or so...
What about all of your projects that are very large, that you worked on for months, had no users, and you still built them until they were finally completed?
What should I do with that? What do you do with those projects??
Unintentionally, is this a new GitHub profile showcase??
How can I deal with it?
Also, many of us can't realize the needs... what people actually want... and even if they get what they actually want, it takes time to build... and if it's completed, we fail to distribute it...
Is Crowdwide going through the same kind of phase?
I'm not sure, but... do you have any personal advice regarding this??
IK this post feels more about solo developer thoughts and less about Crowdwide, because TBH, there's nothing I need to change this time, and everything is working well, so I didn't think I should add anything there.
How do you picture this state?
So, about my project Crowdwide, I can just say I've added lots of new things and polished the UI.
It'll just be changed to V2 on November 1, and that's it!!
Links:
🌐 Crowdwide: https://www.crowdwide.run.place/
💻 GitHub Repository: https://github.com/DeveloperPuneet/Crowdwide
Top comments (18)
When you hit the stage that you're 'done', you step back and watch it flourish. That's the stage where you need to focus more on feedback and ergonomics, keeping and making people comfortable using it, instead of feature chasing. It's the long-term maintenance of a project. I mean when I made Doccit, it was 6 years of ongoing refinements. Then suddenly, it hit a wall, nothing else was needed and it's been half a year since I had to even look at it, cuz it just runs and it works, the client is happy, no need to do anything to it? That's the stage after maintenance, scale. Where you explore how you can expand the market for it, in my case, I added new regions and localizations to it, so it's not just usable in Namibia, but across the globe.
6 years of ongoing refinements is crazy! That's a lot of patience and dedication. I'm still at the stage of trying to get people to discover and actually use Crowdwide, so this is really helpful. When you were growing Doccit, how did you approach expanding into new markets and getting your first users in those regions? 🙌
Doccit started with a customer, my father, who has a bookkeeping firm, he needed automation, so I built it, worked with him to refine it and scale it to where it can run operations for him. Expansion, I looked at what's the barriers, accounting is very regional, so you need compliance framework that's adjustable per-region. Sometimes clients operate in 1 country, but pay taxes in another, etc. so it needs to be very fluid and configurable, with templates for the various regions. That way it's easy to set up and maintain
That makes a lot of sense! Building around a real customer's needs first and then making the system flexible enough to expand sounds like a solid approach. Thanks for sharing your experience! I'm still figuring out how to get Crowdwide in front of the right people, so learning how you approached things is really helpful.
Go check out YC's startup school, you're clearly not getting into software to work a day-job, so better to learn young, so you know how and when to start. I think you'll find the course really enlightening and alot of what they say answer the questions you likely have. So I'd say give it a go, it's like 2h of reading and 10 hours of videos, but you learn ALOT from the people who actually did it. They arent so much focused on 'this is how you make world-class software', more like 'is this actually something you have a market for, how do you market it, who is your target audience, is your product unique enough to stand out, yet familiar enough to get picked up easily, etc.' Definitely worth going through, if even just to learn a bit more
Thanks for the recommendation! I'll definitely check out YC's Startup School. Honestly, figuring out the market, target audience, and how to get Crowdwide in front of the right people is exactly what I'm struggling with right now. Learning from people who've actually built startups sounds really valuable. Appreciate you taking the time to guide me!
The startup school stuff is honestly the foundation I wish I had 7 years ago, when I started working on Doccit. It would have changed ALOT with how I built it and structured it. I'd also recommend checking out YC's youtube and watch some of the lectures (think of them as TED talks), alot are quite useful, especially on the marketing and audience engagement side of things.
That's really valuable advice! 🙌 It's honestly helpful to hear this from someone who's been building for 7 years. I'll check out YC's YouTube lectures too, especially the ones about marketing and audience engagement.
With 14 members, I think the question is not what to build next, it is whether anyone comes back. One thing you could try: pick one number, such as how many people post in a week who you did not personally invite, and watch it for 4 weeks. Ask 3 or 4 of the 14 what made them come back, or why they did not, in a short chat. If the number stays flat, then pausing the project is a fine choice, but you will know why. I would not post to many places at once. Find one small group that has the problem your algorithm solves and invite 10 people there.
Actually, I just got a new user, so it's 15 now! 😭
I initially invited just one person when I started Crowdwide, and everyone else came through my public posts.
Out of the 14 users, around 8–10 return within a week, and according to my stats, 3–4 are regular returning users. Most seem to come back through notifications or email newsletters.
I also ran a survey, and around 70% of respondents said they found the content less interesting. That's something I really need to work on.
The other challenge is that I don't have a big circle in the development community. I'm a student, and I usually build projects solo. I don't really have experienced people around me to collaborate with or even ask for suggestions, so figuring everything out has been difficult.
Honestly, I'm starting to question whether I should continue Crowdwide or just stop working on it. I'm not looking for sugarcoated advice here. If you genuinely think the idea isn't worth pursuing, tell me. If you think I should continue, I'd like to know why and what you'd do in my position.
I'd genuinely appreciate honest opinions, even if they're difficult to hear. If most people think I should shut it down, I'll seriously consider that too. What would you do if you were in my position?
I'd keep going a bit longer. 8-10 of 14 returning within a week is a real signal, and the survey tells you exactly what to fix: the content. Try rewriting it for the 3-4 regulars, ask them what they come back for, and give it a month before deciding.
Oof, the line about failing to distribute is the whole game and most of us learn it way too late. 14 members isn't dead, that's just where everything starts. The building part was fun because you could see progress daily, but now it's the boring grind of seeding topics yourself and finding the few people who'd actually care. What kind of communities is Crowdwide actually for?
Crowdwide is actually built around communities, creators, and discovery!
The main idea is to give smaller and newer communities a fair chance to get discovered instead of letting community size and existing followers decide who gets visibility. I'm also experimenting with the feed algorithm so smaller communities can get that initial exposure, and then engagement can help their content reach more people.
It's not limited to one type of community either. Developers, artists, writers, bloggers, YouTubers, and basically anyone building something or sharing content could have a place there.
And yeah, you're right about distribution. I've spent so much time building the platform that now I need to figure out how to get the right people to discover it.
i start the painfull but realistic seo and publication proccess
That's actually interesting! How do you go about the SEO and publication process? Like, what do you actually do step by step when you're trying to get people to discover your project? I'd love to learn from your experience!
I woudnt use any of the paid seo websites because most of them are just cashgrab versions of google search console. i would also recomend online communitys that allow project sharing
I've already set up Google Search Console! 😄 Which online communities or platforms would you recommend for sharing Crowdwide and getting it in front of the right audience?
Congrats on reaching "done", that's rarer than shipping. What I learned after putting a small app on the Play Store: done is when the work switches from building to listening. The first week of real user feedback changed my plans more than the month of coding before it. I'd pick one number to watch for two weeks before starting the next thing.