22 Years of Building Software and I Have No Idea How to Get Users

I've been programming since I was 11. Started hacking together RuneScape private servers in 2004 like a degen, graduated to enterprise backends, built RESTful APIs managing millions of rows for EPC contractors. Java, Kotlin, Python, TypeScript, PostgreSQL.. you name it.

I've also started approximately thirty-nine thousand side projects and shipped exactly zero of them.

Until now.. I finally finished and feel good about my first one.

The product

I built Cognova -- an AI workspace where your agents actually remember what you told them last week. Persistent memory, knowledge bases, task management, automations, tools, the whole thing. Fully live with Stripe billing, interactive onboarding, the works.

I'm not going to list every feature because that's not why I'm here. The product is done. That's the easy part (for me, anyway).

The part nobody taught me

I can architect a distributed system in my sleep. I cannot get a single human being to sign up for my product.

Here's what I've tried:

• Twitter/X: Weeks of posting. Minimal engagement. The algorithm does not care about you until people already care about you. Chicken, egg, you know..
• r/SideProject: 1,100 views, good conversation, zero registrations. Mostly other builders offering advice (which was genuinely helpful).
• r/ObsidianMD: 400 views. Planted a seed. One privacy purist told me off. Mods deleted my post. Fair enough.
• Direct DMs: Started reaching out to people expressing relevant pain on Twitter. Too early to tell.

The biggest lesson so far

A Reddit user told me: "don't describe the tech at all. Describe the pain."

This hit hard. My original landing page said "The AI agent workspace built for Claude." This tagline landed with me, I built the thing. It didn't land for users.

I rewrote the whole thing around a single insight: every AI tool forgets everything between conversations. Mine doesn't. That's it. That's the pitch.

I also scrapped my onboarding modal and replaced it with something I'm genuinely proud of . The AI agent itself onboards you through conversation. It asks your name, learns what you're working on, creates a project, sets up tasks. By the time you're "done," you've seen the product work. No forms, no feature tour, no settings page, done in a matter of seconds to minutes.

Where I'm stuck

I know how to build. I do not know how to distribute.

I'm seeing this is a common pattern... developer builds thing, developer doesn't know how to sell thing. I'm developer..

Specific questions for anyone who's been through this:

• How did you get your first 10 users? Not the first 1,000, the first 10 who actually used the product and gave feedback.
• At what point did you know whether the problem you're solving actually resonates, vs. you just built something you personally wanted?
• For those who tried build-in-public on Twitter with a small following -- did it ever actually work, or did you find traction elsewhere? Every post with thousands of interactions just looks like trash engagement farming to me...

I'm not looking for "just keep posting" encouragement. I'm looking for the nitty gritty, tactical stuff that actually moved the needle early on. Any advice, insight, or just general talking me down from the ledge is seriously super appreciated. I know everyone's time is valuable and it's a resource that none of us can get back. So if you do take a second to try it out - thank you, seriously.

If you're curious about the product, it's at cognova.dev free tier, no credit card, easy signup, blah blah. But honestly I'm here for the distribution advice more than signups.

The building was the fun part. This part is.. humbling.