101–110 of 157 posts
My friend and I just started a site to help do this: http://leaklist.org/ It's super early, but we've already gotten 500 users who are looking to beta test software and we've already started sending out codes. Our goal is to make it the best platform for developers to get their first 100 users and the best place for users to get early & free access to awesome apps. If you're interested please sign up either as a user…
Here's a tactic that has worked for me so far 1. Set up a blog on your domain 2. write 20+ articles on industry-related topics (this alone will bring in some traffic) 3. get a number of emails from prospective customers 4. write a PERSONALIZED email to everyone on the list and ask if they are interested in an interview to be published on your blog. Offer a link from your blog as additional incentive My response rate…
I haven't done any promotion for http://asoftmurmur.com besides posting to reddit and HN, and it now has 400-500 regular daily users. It depends entirely on what type of product or service you're offering. Another key thing is to understand the community. There is radical cultural diversity between subreddits which manifests in very different reactions to self-promotion. It's essential to engage appropriately and res…
Before launching my first product, I wrote ten articles on related subjects and put up an email sign-up form. The article were static html pages, not blog posts. They were howto's and other reference pieces that had lasting traffic value.
I haven't done any promotion for http://asoftmurmur.com besides posting to reddit and HN, and it now has 400-500 regular daily users. It depends entirely on what type of product or service you're offering. Another key thing is to understand the community. There is radical cultural diversity between subreddits which manifests in very different reactions to self-promotion. It's essential to engage appropriately and res…
This is fantastic. I am in love, I feel like I'm beside the ocean while I'm working. Thanks for this. Instantly bookmarked.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There were numerous WP consultants when he did this. They were his target customers. He interviewed them about their pain points and found that their pain was in line with what he had in mind for WPEngine (easy, fast, secure, no-friction hosting for WP) He asked them to write him a check at the end of the interview. BAM, customers. (I make this sound easier than it is..)
Oh, thank you both for your quick responses. So he really did a good job to solve the pains of his potential customers. Now the question becomes: how WP got so many consultants in the first place? But that's out of the scope of the parent posting, it still within the scope of the OP though, :) Based on my experience, it's very hard for people to accept something new in the first place, for example, when WP was introd…
There are 75 million (!) WordPress sites in the world. It would be amazing if any software platform with 75 million users didn't have a large number of consultants available to help people with it.
I haven't done any promotion for http://asoftmurmur.com besides posting to reddit and HN, and it now has 400-500 regular daily users. It depends entirely on what type of product or service you're offering. Another key thing is to understand the community. There is radical cultural diversity between subreddits which manifests in very different reactions to self-promotion. It's essential to engage appropriately and res…
This is fantastic. I am in love, I feel like I'm beside the ocean while I'm working. Thanks for this. Instantly bookmarked.
1) What existing solution do you believe your product (or prospective product) is better than?
2) Where can you find a critical mass of people who use the existing solution?
3) Go there. Talk to them. Show them your product.
Now, none of this is trivial. First, because assuming you're operating lean, you start with no real clue if you're "better" than anyone or anything else, or on what dimensions that actually matter. You start with a hypothesis, and you have to seek out opinions (customer development). Second, because the existing solution might not be what you think it is. Or it might not be a product at all. It might be a behavior people are doing, or an "off-label" use of another product.
But by and large, this method works. It might not get you scale. But it'll get you in front of potential users, and those users will be primed to try out your product. The trick is in identifying the existing solution, finding people who use it, and getting some of their time.
I'd definitely advocate doing this before doing any "Show HN" posts. Show HN is a (potential) way to get a lot of traffic and attention in one blast. You don't want to play that card until you know you can benefit from it: either in terms of feedback (you'll want to have vetted out basic users and assumptions first), or in terms of users (aim for some indications of fit before firing the shotgun). The other problem with relying on Show HN, or Reddit, is that there's luck of the draw involved. Sometimes your post gets buried or washed out by the noise. Being good is no firm guarantee of charting to page one.