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Ask HN: How did you acquire your first 100 users?

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Re: Ask HN: How did you acquire your first 100 users?

#181

Post by homero »

hokihy72 wrote: post #50
homero wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happened to mail pilot

We stopped selling it last year to focus on our next product, which is aimed to solve the root of the email problem. It definitely has a future, so stay tuned! But through working with our customers for years, we saw that while we really helped people get their email more organized, we weren't solving the root problem: that anyone can dump anything they want into your inbox in the first place. We felt called to doubl…

Is it like 33mail? I'm currently using that and tried https://leemail.me/ in the past

Re: Ask HN: How did you acquire your first 100 users?

#182

Post by danm07 »

I hired a growth hacker to accelerate our app to ~1000 users. I tried sending emails out to people to use the app, but my network just didn't fit the niche we were targeting. I also showed the app to people in Starbucks and wrote custom replies to people online looking for the app: they were of little help.

Re: Ask HN: How did you acquire your first 100 users?

#183

Post by newyearnewyou »

danm07 wrote: post #182

I hired a growth hacker to accelerate our app to ~1000 users. I tried sending emails out to people to use the app, but my network just didn't fit the niche we were targeting. I also showed the app to people in Starbucks and wrote custom replies to people online looking for the app: they were of little help.

Who did you hire?

Re: Ask HN: How did you acquire your first 100 users?

#184

Post by nickpsecurity »

jorgeleo wrote: post #164
chrischen wrote: post #63

Treat your business like a consulting service, and treat whatever technology you have not as the end product but as a tool you use to provide whatever service you are providing at higher quality or at lower costs. Essentially the "do things that don't scale" advice is just this. It puts your technology at the backseat.

I am curious, what is your personal experience with this approach? can you elaborate?

IBM moved much of their business to that where it's about services + their own tech. Many firms used 4GL's or other productivity boosters to deliver more deliverables to customers for same or reduced price. Sun had a neat language for web apps called DASL that they didn't publish since they used it internally for customers they delivered sites/apps to. Google and Facebook develop a lot of software that could be products in themselves just to improve their real stream of revenue from advertisers. Android is a prominent one where they practically give it away to get the ad money from their built-in apps. I developed a mental list of tools and tactics to knock out a large swath of vulnerability in systems and networks that people would only get consulting with me. And so on and so forth.

Re: Ask HN: How did you acquire your first 100 users?

#185

Post by iends »

mobitar wrote: post #127

Getting the first 100 users has actually been the easiest part of the process. It's getting 100 daily new users that's really hard. For Standard Notes[0], here's what I did: 1. Comment on privacy related HN posts about a privacy-focused notes app. That would have gotten me 40-50 users. 2. Write articles[1] on encryption/privacy/webdev. Some of them made it to frontpage HN, some didn't. That might have gotten me to 50…

I couldn't find pricing information at all on your site for extended...

Re: Ask HN: How did you acquire your first 100 users?

#186

Post by mattbgates »

paltry_digger wrote: post #93

My company ( http://www.gosmartride.com ) allows seniors without smartphones to use Uber. Two main ways of marketing: ProductHunt, which gained exposure among tech savvy people. Some referred parents/grandparents to use. I then went to senior centers with business cards and flyers. All managers there were excited about the idea and happy to let me post a few flyers and distribute business cards.

Wow, this is a great idea! Wish I had known about this last week. I have yet to use Uber, but needed to get my dad to the airport in a hurry. Unfortunately, he did have to hail a cab. Wish I had known about this... thanks for sharing! It'll come in handy in the future.

Re: Ask HN: How did you acquire your first 100 users?

#187

Post by conductr »

karthiksk2012 wrote: post #37

Really great feedback. The reason I asked this question is I just launched my app https://pipecourse.com/ and its been few days. I tried cold emailing people but getting almost no response. Any particular feedback for this will be appreciated.

On mobile, iOS chrome portrait, the front page jumps around as you loop though the words in the "Follow..." section. Some words are longer and line break down, the shorter words don't need a line break. It makes the whole page pretty annoying, just thought you'd want to know

Re: Ask HN: How did you acquire your first 100 users?

#188

Post by wjh_ »

welanes wrote: post #88

1. I scoured the reviews of similar apps and listed the main feature requests that were being stonewalled and implemented them. 2. I then set up keyword alerts for Reddit and Twitter and when somebody mentioned [similar app] I popped in and suggested they try Lanes which, btw, has feature [similar app] has not implemented . 3. I got lucky^. Photos of Lanes began appearing on Tumblr blogs (the #studyblr community) and…

Lanes looks really neat! I'll be giving it a go, it does a lot of what I want.
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