This whole new adventure actually started with https://topicstotalkabout.com and with my gradually growing frustration from its promotion.
On the project itself I can work practically endlessly. There is always something that needs to be improved. A new function, better questions, nicer map, faster database, new content, better internal linking, mobile display or a button which is, according to me, four pixels too much to the left. In the evening I can then have a pleasant feeling that I worked hard the whole day. The only problem is that a person who never heard about topicstotalkabout.com has absolutely no idea how many amazing things I moved today four pixels to the right.
Today creating an application is absurdly simple compared to what it was even a few years ago. If a person at least a little knows programming and knows what he wants to build, with ChatGPT, Claude and similar tools he can in one day vibe-code something which would take him weeks before. Database, user accounts, administration, API, responsive frontend – of course none of this appears completely by itself, but the speed is somewhere completely else.
The result is that the internet today can probably produce new SaaS, micro-SaaS and all kinds of small applications faster than anybody can use them.
And then comes the question: Who will know about mine?
Here vibe coding stops working.
With topicstotalkabout.com I therefore gradually started trying practically everything that a small maker without a marketing department can try. SEO and articles are a logical long-term way. Then X and classic build in public, LinkedIn, Reddit, Quora, Hacker News, Indie Hackers, different groups and communities. You can do outreach, write to people directly, try newsletters, videos or paid advertising. Each of these possibilities can work, but almost none of them is “I add a URL and from tomorrow I have traffic”.
A separate world are launch platforms. Product Hunt, Uneed, Microlaunch, Fazier, BetaList and many smaller projects. To this software directories and catalogues like AlternativeTo, SaaSHub, G2 or Capterra. Everywhere you need to fill something, add a logo, screenshot, short description, long description, tagline, category, URL and ideally then sometime return and check if anything actually happened.
After the tenth form a person starts thinking whether by chance his real startup should not be an application for automatic filling of forms into startup directories.
Of course, somebody already thought about it.
There are Submitator, SubmitSaaS, ListingBott, StartupSubmit, LaunchDirectories and other services built exactly on this problem. I enter information about my project once and the service sends them or manually adds them into tens or hundreds of directories. Some do it automatically, some manually, some combine both.
When a person looks at this ecosystem longer, he starts noticing another thing. It is not anymore only about traffic.
It is about backlinks.
And very often about two letters.
DR.
Domain Rating.
A metric from Ahrefs which tries to express the strength of the backlink profile of a domain on a scale from 0 to 100. It is not a Google metric. Google nowhere said that when I have DR 42, I deserve more love than a website with DR 31. Also I personally do not consider DR some magical truth about the quality of a website.
Only that in fact does not matter very much.
Makers believe it. SEO people know it. Directory websites show it. Backlink sellers use it.
People when buying an expired domain look at DR.
Lists like “Free DR 50+ directories”, “High DR startup directories” and similar are created. There are even simple free DR checkers which use available data or Ahrefs API and their main function is to show a person one number.
Gradually DR became some kind of unofficial currency of a small part of the internet.
I can think what I want, but when a maker sees two directories and one has DR 8 and the other DR 62, I can quite well guess where he will add his project first.
You don’t have DR, you are nobody. I exaggerate a little. But only a little.
And exactly at this moment I started realizing that the problem with promotion of topicstotalkabout.com is slowly pulling me somewhere completely else. I was not looking anymore only at where to add my project.
I started thinking about why people use these websites and if it cannot be done differently.
That was probably the moment when I should have closed the browser and gone to do something useful.
Of course I did not close it.
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