When you built your app, whom did you build it for? Presumably you built it for a specific customer segment in mind, so did you try searching for them on Google or elsewhere?

Or did you build it for no one? That is why you're struggling to get users, because if you actually had built it for a specific persona, then you'd know exactly where to find them. You're not actually doing anything different to the author of the OP, just building something and hoping people will come [0], which is one of the worst lies founders tell themselves.

> But I don't want to create a business right now

That's fine, you don't have to make money from your products, but my point fundamentally doesn't change, either you're building for yourself, in which case it's a hobby, or you're building for someone else, in which case you need to know who these people are before you build. Sounds like you fell into the exact same trap the person on IH warned you about, so if you don't want to feel demoralized in the future, you need to change your mindset, from building to understanding users' issues.

[0] https://samuelmullen.com/articles/startup-fallacies-if-you-b...

The thing I'm working on right now with a partner is an idea we got with yet someone else who was working with us. He was working in the sort of role that nobody would think of. I would have never known the area even existed. We're working on finishing the MVP this week and we have multiple people per target industries that are asking to check it out.

The trouble with influencers, is that they have ready-made consumer audiences.

Everyone else should be looking at things that create inarguable value. If I'm charging $XX per hour and this thing saves me multiple hours per X time period, then it sells itself. Even if the thing isn't saving me money (costs as much as the time saved) - it still may be worth it because maybe faster delivery and less drudgery is worth the outlay. And it would probably cost more to hire someone to do that anyway.

So, I agree with the dude who told you to find users first. But maybe the advice should have been "find pain points that you can solve." Say you figure out a service that could save lawyers loads of time. Then rather than say "try out my app" you could say something like "let me join on as a free contributor for a while so that I can work with you to improve X process." Once you have proven it works and you get the buy-in, then sales should come easier. But I don't see how you can discover / develop these things without being embedded in X field.

I think you have a big disconnect with the Indie Hacker community. It sounds like you posted there hoping to get them as an audience and potential users of your project. But they assumed you are posting as a fellow founder trying to get feedback on your business. So they gave you advice about your business (which you didn't want) and didn't much care to check out the actual project (which they assumed is secondary).

You should probably try to clarify this, address them more directly and make it clear that you're trying to gain them as users of your project - if you want to pursue this path at all, of course.

Also, remember that no one owes you to try out your project. It's perfectly fine for many people to just not care about the problem you're trying to solve, even if to you it seems like a very important idea. Personally, I'm not vibe coding or using Ai much at all, so I would have no interest in trying out your product, even though it is free. This is not me being rude in any way: I'm just not your target audience. Perhaps the people on Indie Hackers are also not, though likely for other reasons. Or perhaps your pitch just wasn't attractive or clear enough.

> But all I've got was this generic "find users" advice.

That is a polite way to say that your idea or your execution (so far) is bad.