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Ask HN: How did you grow from 100 to 1,000 users?

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Re: Ask HN: How did you grow from 100 to 1,000 users?

#61

Post by sebringj »

egfx wrote: post #46
sebringj wrote: post #22

If people really like your app AND you have a way for them to invite others easily AND share about it on their social links easily AND you started off by going to your core group personally and battle tested it, it just happens.

Total nonsense. Most apps fail to gain enough users to experience the long tail effect of which you speak. http://2fb.me was an app that connected Twitter and Facebook through sharing. I built it believing this methodology to be true but it's not.

Hmm your app looks cool. Maybe you need to connect with your users better, maybe nobody knows about it? Maybe the message isn't getting across.

Re: Ask HN: How did you grow from 100 to 1,000 users?

#62

Post by tmaly »

no1youknowz wrote: post #8

I looked at the other Ask HN for 100 users. Only 1 person mentioned influencers. I'm going to recommend it again, but with more detail. An influencer has a particular niche/segment in the market that they are passionate about. They may have various channels in which to communicate to their audience, these may be facebook page/groups, youtube channels, instagram. These influencers have from 100 to 100k audience member…

How could I go about getting in that position to flip a switch and get 1m or 100K unique?

Re: Ask HN: How did you grow from 100 to 1,000 users?

#63

Post by going_to_800 »

sherm8n wrote: post #50
rkunnamp wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you track and pay commissions? Any tool recommendations?

Have you checked out GrowSumo.com? They were YC S15. Luke and Bryn are awesome guys. They got us connected with a handful of influencers that promoted my first startup – www.goodaudience.com. Then their software tracked monthly commissions and payouts.

You need to mention that they charge $300/month minimum. Their feature set seems pretty low for the high price...

Re: Ask HN: How did you grow from 100 to 1,000 users?

#64

Post by going_to_800 »

AznHisoka wrote: post #9
no1youknowz wrote: post #8

I looked at the other Ask HN for 100 users. Only 1 person mentioned influencers. I'm going to recommend it again, but with more detail. An influencer has a particular niche/segment in the market that they are passionate about. They may have various channels in which to communicate to their audience, these may be facebook page/groups, youtube channels, instagram. These influencers have from 100 to 100k audience member…

what industries or niches does this strategy work for? which ones do they not work as well?

Influencer and affiliate marketing channel works in markets where there are many potential influencers... that's it.

For advertising and marketing related tools(SEO,PPC,social media, marketing automation,etc) works better because their main clients are marketers, many have an audience and know how to market a product.

However, it also works for sales tools and CRMs for ex., there are lots of influencers in this space.

Works amazingly well for e-commerce, which is where influencer marketing is most used, everyone with a good following on Instagram can become an influencer.

If your space doesn't have too many influencers, start a referral program.

Re: Ask HN: How did you grow from 100 to 1,000 users?

#65

Post by sb8244 »

udkl wrote: post #35
sb8244 wrote: post #5

I've seen my current product go from 0 users to thousands. It is a business workflow tool where most users log several hours per day, so I understand that it's very unusual compared to other services. The big thing for us was just a strong sales and marketing presence backed by a product team (my team) that listens for the user and the marketplace and responds quickly. It takes a little time but snowballed by just st…

Sure, but sales is expensive. Is there a trick or insight to keep sales costs low ?

It almost baits me to pitch the company I work for. I would think we keep sales cheaper because of efficiency.

We were very very good at setting up a very efficient pipeline of demo setter (sdr) to demo performer and closer (ae). I believe this is one of the more cost effective ways to scale because the specialization allows for getting really good at that one part of the pipeline.

Re: Ask HN: How did you grow from 100 to 1,000 users?

#66

Post by sb8244 »

zachsnow wrote: post #16
sb8244 wrote: post #5

I've seen my current product go from 0 users to thousands. It is a business workflow tool where most users log several hours per day, so I understand that it's very unusual compared to other services. The big thing for us was just a strong sales and marketing presence backed by a product team (my team) that listens for the user and the marketplace and responds quickly. It takes a little time but snowballed by just st…

Agreed (coming from a similar spot it sounds like, in my case daily operations tools for SMBs): build a good product, and a sales team to sell it. Then sell it, all day, every day. Just make sure the product can back up sales!

Keeping churn in check is very important. High churn means something is wrong with the product.... Or maybe not? Implementation and support are important parts of the equation too. Product can't be garbage though.
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