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Ask HN: What'd you do to get your first 100 users?

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Re: Ask HN: What'd you do to get your first 100 users?

#91

Post by eli »

notastartup wrote: post #67
eli wrote: post #41

This is almost the exact same question as this front page post from an hour earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7248460 In essence: Go where your users hang out. With few exceptions, this is probably NOT the same place as where startup geeks hang out. One example: my startup has a website for the Energy & Utilities industry. We got a bunch of early users by forming a partnership with a trade organization fo…

how did you manage to form a partnership with the trade organization? step by step approach?

I'm very lucky to have two co-founders who are both much better at sales and business development than I, so one of them handled the details... But my recollection is that they approached us with a very vague idea that we were doing good stuff and maybe we can work together somehow? First instinct might have been to try to sell them ads (we're fully ad-supported), but after talking to them what they really wanted was 1) ways to provide more value to their members, 2) ways to do internal promotions to existing members and 3) things that are really easy for them to execute. So we racked our brains and came up with a deal where we write, manage, and send a weekly email newsletter with content tailored for their audience. The newsletter has both our logos in it and we promote it to our larger audience. They have a section they can use to promote their own events and content, and we promote the newsletter to our larger audience. We also provide discounts on ads to their members.

It's not the sort of deal that "easy" in that it took real work to put together. But I think it's worked out great for everyone.

Re: Ask HN: What'd you do to get your first 100 users?

#93

Post by yaur »

My last personal project was a fan site for an MMORPG where I was doing around 250k monthly uniques before the game tanked. Promoting it was just a matter of establishing a presence on the official forums prelaunch, looking at referrers and extending the presence to other sites that were generating traffic.

My last commercial project was an OTT IPTV startup which we mainly promoted through adwords, some premium online ads in our target demographic, and doing interviews with media outlets that were serving that demographic. In terms of CPA adwords were by far the most cost effective.

My current project is in the entertainment. We are looking to get buy in from a couple of prominent people in the space before we go live and expect that a "we like it" from them will give us critical mass very quickly.

Re: Ask HN: What'd you do to get your first 100 users?

#94

Post by lucaspiller »

DorintheFlora wrote: post #57
lobotryas wrote: post #7

It can be a working strategy if you're building a lifestyle business and don't care about hockey-stick growth or making millions. I'm an armchair entrepreneur for now (just getting that out of the way), but the advice I've seen over and over again can be generalized as: "Go out and talk to peope". You'll want to avoid starting with a sales pitch. Instead, talk to them about their business (or life) and see if your pr…

If appropriate, give the the elevator pitch and a 1min demo on your live product. I want to point out the the above snippet assumes/implies a fairly deep knowledge of your intended audience, the problem space you are working in and several other things, any one of which might be the real problem as to why the OP is not getting traction. Not a criticism. Just ...an elaboration, I guess.

I think if you want to be successful you need to have good knowledge about your audience. Maybe not when you are first starting out, but you should when you have a product to sell.

You won't be a good golf club salesman if you know absolutely nothing about golf.

Re: Ask HN: What'd you do to get your first 100 users?

#95

Post by wisty »

DorintheFlora wrote: post #57
lobotryas wrote: post #7

It can be a working strategy if you're building a lifestyle business and don't care about hockey-stick growth or making millions. I'm an armchair entrepreneur for now (just getting that out of the way), but the advice I've seen over and over again can be generalized as: "Go out and talk to peope". You'll want to avoid starting with a sales pitch. Instead, talk to them about their business (or life) and see if your pr…

If appropriate, give the the elevator pitch and a 1min demo on your live product. I want to point out the the above snippet assumes/implies a fairly deep knowledge of your intended audience, the problem space you are working in and several other things, any one of which might be the real problem as to why the OP is not getting traction. Not a criticism. Just ...an elaboration, I guess.

If potential customers tell you there's an issue with your approach, that's extremely valuable too.

Re: Ask HN: What'd you do to get your first 100 users?

#97

Post by bredren »

Friends and family count for your first dozen at least, hopefully. After that, consider looking for online communities that need your product. For example, vbulletin forums that focus on them.

Ingratiate yourself to these communities by participating in discussions unrelated to what you're working on.

By then, you should be able to post a full thread describing what you've done, offer a few screenshots and ask if people will try it. By replying to people's questions and being friendly, you will keep the thread reasonably topped and pick up users that way.

This also works in general interest internet forums, so long as you are a reasonable participant and posting in the correct areas.

Re: Ask HN: What'd you do to get your first 100 users?

#98

Post by patrickdavey »

gabemart wrote: post #42

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…

Wow, that is absolutely great - also bookmarked. Very nice and many thanks!

Re: Ask HN: What'd you do to get your first 100 users?

#99

Post by einhverfr »

lobotryas wrote: post #7

It can be a working strategy if you're building a lifestyle business and don't care about hockey-stick growth or making millions. I'm an armchair entrepreneur for now (just getting that out of the way), but the advice I've seen over and over again can be generalized as: "Go out and talk to peope". You'll want to avoid starting with a sales pitch. Instead, talk to them about their business (or life) and see if your pr…

I don't think it is a working strategy ever, to be honest. What you usually want to get decent returns is not necessarily hockey-stick growth (unless the game is to impress investors but this usually leads to questions of gaming the system). What you want is decent, modest, exponential growth (when you are small your growth can approach exponential levels, but when you are big you have problems keeping it up, due to the fact that most growth in a finite market will resemble a sigmoid in shape -- this is also why big companies can't successfully innovate).

Getting out and taking to people, as you say, is where it is at, regardless of your business goals. Start with the three F's of fundraising (friends, family, fools) and go from there. Posting on Reddit and HN is good to create discussion or buzz, but it won't by itself get you sales.

Another thing I would recommend is that you do two things:

1. Write a marketing plan. Talk about the market, who you are going for, and how you will reach them. Discuss both PR and advertising, as well as other forms of outreach. Review it, write it as a team. Get everyone on the same page.

2. Then once that is done, put it on the shelf and don't look at it for a year. Act as if the plan doesn't exist. Go out and promote your product. Come back in a year and compare what you did and what you accomplished to what you set out in the plan.

Re: Ask HN: What'd you do to get your first 100 users?

#100

Post by JacobH »

gabemart wrote: post #42

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…

Yeah, this is great.
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