1. Identify Your Audience.
See where your audience/community hangs out whether it be blogs/forums/social networking sites or parties.
2. Build Trust.
Engage the that community and build their TRUST by helping them out. No one likes a weasel or troll.
3. Ask and you shall receive.
Community feedback is paramount. You'll be surprised how much help they'll give you.
4. Organic Growth.
The community will launch the site for you since you have already established an authentic relationship and it's a product that they like.
5. Press on and learn.
Don't get discouraged and follow your passion. Life is full of lessons for you to learn.
This is really tough - we have a product that I was sure would be covered all over the place, on both the gaming and the tech blogs. (Online marketplace just for gaming, as I think most people here know.)
But we launched without inventory, so even though we talked to a lot of people, the best press we got was Mashable. No TC, VB, Kotaku, or Joystiq. They just said "there's nothing there, I'm not going to risk my credibility on a cool idea".
My belief is that if your project requires users to be "cool", then wait. Just release it, get some users through SEO and WOM, then pitch it to TC and the crew. If you never pitch it to them, they'll never know you exist. Hell, even now, we're not in CrunchBase. And I can definitively say we're the largest gaming pure-play marketplace out there. We'll approach the lot again when we're good and ready.
My thesis is that they'll cover you anyway if you're important enough.
There are plenty of gamer forums out there. I would start there.
Building rapport:
1. Share your experiences or ask questions about gaming.
2. Answer any gamers questions with insightful replies.
3. See if your product addresses their need.
It takes a lot of time to build a community.
If you're in the bay area, we have startup meetups every now and then. It might help if you reach out to the community in person as well. http://entrepreneur.meetup.com/1737/
Hope that helps!
2. Build Trust. Engage the that community and build their TRUST by helping them out. No one likes a weasel or troll.
3. Ask and you shall receive. Community feedback is paramount. You'll be surprised how much help they'll give you.
4. Organic Growth. The community will launch the site for you since you have already established an authentic relationship and it's a product that they like.
5. Press on and learn. Don't get discouraged and follow your passion. Life is full of lessons for you to learn.
Good Luck!!
Nick