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I have been working on Kiyeovo - an open-source desktop P2P messenger with an optional anonymous mode - for almost a year now. The plan is to go full-release on 7th of July.

Currently, I’m trying to figure out how to make the launch more visible - market the product (even though it's FOSS).

The common answer I saw was to "build in public", but as I, and many of us, don't have any sort of following online - that won't have as big of an effect. Still, useful advice.

Since the final release of the product is less than a week from now, I decided to focus a lot more on the marketing aspect.

I allocated a budget of 550$ which I will spend on the release. - 150$ of that will go into deploying bootstrap, relay and STUN/TURN servers around the world so that you can use the app without setting up your own infrastructure - path of least friction for users who just want to try the app out.

I'm left with 400$ which are going straight to getting the word out. And this is where I need your help and advice.

- What are some ideas and experiences? - What would you do with the remaining 400$?

Some ideas that I currently have are: 1. Funny video ad (it's different from what usual FOSS marketing does) 2. Paid ads on reddit, X and LinkedIn 3. Reaching out to FOSS communities 4. Writing more technical blogs about it

Free actions I did/will do -> I created a landing page ( https://kiyeovo.marindedic.com/ ), the app will come with platform-specific installers for less entry friction, and I will announce the launch on HN

For people who have successfully launched FOSS: what helped? What was a waste of time and money?

He's 13 years old. He wanted to track his own ant colonies — growth, feeding, humidity, and other metrics. He built the whole app himself with some help from AI tools; I just helped him deploy it to a server. Would love to hear your feedback!