How Obsidian got its users

Obsidian shipped the public beta first, then Erica posted the thread 'Dynalist & Obsidian' in the Announcements category of talk.dynalist.io, the forum for their own earlier product. She said flatly it is 'not an outliner', promised Dynalist would be 'developed and maintained as usual', and left the angry replies standing. With no forum of your own, the copyable half is the thread: find the room where people already ask for the feature your product is, and answer there under your name.

done whenPaste the URL of one thread where your target user is already asking for the thing you built. No link means you have a guess, not a room.

Run the forum yourself and give it a category that is not about your software. forum.obsidian.md has Help, Bug reports, Share & showcase, Devs: Plugins & API, and Knowledge management, whose whole brief is 'Talk about PKM methodologies'. Feature requests states its rule in one line: 'Likes (Hearts) = Votes'. The roadmap argument then happens on your domain, public and indexed, instead of in a support inbox.

done whenCount threads started in your space last month that never mention your product name. Zero means you run a support desk, not a community.

Make the store something each developer builds in public. To get listed, an author pushes source to GitHub, tags a release carrying main.js, manifest.json and styles.css as assets, then submits at community.obsidian.md. Automated review checks the Developer policies: no client-side telemetry, no ads loaded over the internet, no obfuscated code, and the README must disclose payments, account requirements and network use. Every plugin ends up a public repo pointing back at you.

done whenCount people who shipped something that only runs if your product is installed, none of whom you asked.

Write the self-promotion rule so builders have a legal door. Obsidian's community code of conduct names one place for it, the #content-update channel on Discord, bans 'exclusive self-promotion' (posting links without otherwise taking part in the community), requires the work be relevant to Obsidian rather than an unrelated side project, and says paid content 'will always receive additional scrutiny'. Plugin authors get to post. Link droppers get removed. Same written rule.

done whenPoint at your written self-promotion rule, then at one post you removed under it in the last 30 days. If you cannot do both, the rule is decoration.

Put two fixed rituals on the calendar and let the community fill them. Every October, Obsidian October: people hack on plugins, themes, vaults and videos, the team runs office hours on Discord, and the dev docs carry self-critique checklists. In the new year, Gems of the Year: nominations on Discord, a panel shortlists, forum accounts vote, and categories reward people rather than products, most helpful Discord member, most helpful forum member.

done whenAfter your last event, count the artifacts still linkable today, and how many were made by someone who is not you.