I've found it incredibly useful to seek out potential users, either in HackerNews, niche subreddits, or small local conferences/workshops. There you are likely

I've found it incredibly useful to seek out potential users, either in HackerNews, niche subreddits, or small local conferences/workshops. There you are likely to find small projects like your own, some of whom will find your stuff useful. A small community of even 3-4 people providing feedback and encouragement to your work can go a long way. If I can't find anybody interested in my work, I will take a good look at whether my project is actually as useful as I thought it was, and if I need to reorient my goals. Usually it's because existing tools already solve the problem well enough, and I didn't do my background research. Or because I didn't even have a problem statement in mind to begin with. Or I'll find that I didn't write enough documentation. Feedback is invaluable. Sometimes I will work on something just because it's fun, or because I'm learning new things. That's okay, but in that case I have made an explicit decision to not care about popularity or usage.