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Show HN: Checklist of over 100 directories to submit your startup

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Re: Show HN: Checklist of over 100 directories to submit your startup

#51

Post by gnicholas »

A couple years ago, I saw a similar submission list for startups. Having recently launched, I took the list very seriously — checking out the sites and ranking them in order of desirability, then submitting to a couple sites each week with language that I had tailored to appeal to each site based on what they covered.

Nothing happened. A month or two later, I decided this was a waste of time. But before closing the remaining browser tabs (which were the ones low on my priority list), I decided to submit a one-sentence description to the remaining sites.

The next morning, I heard back from one of the sites [1], which not only wanted to feature my startup [2] — they also wanted to license our technology to make their website easier to read!

If there's a lesson to be learned from this N=1, it's that shorter is sweeter when it comes to pitches.

1: http://www.springwise.com

2: http://www.beelinereader.com/individual

Re: Show HN: Checklist of over 100 directories to submit your startup

#52

Post by craftoman »

goatherders wrote: post #16
canterburry wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting, I actually found the $89 a bargain given how long it will take to just create accounts on all these services before I can submit anything. That alone will take hours. My worry is just that this service will quickly get marked as a spammer and probably blocked or downvoted as a poster in many places.

Agreed. $89 is basically 89 cents per submission. My time is worth a lot more than that. I would be glad to pay for this service (and probably will) just for the backlink juice.

I will do the job for 50 bucks if you want...

Re: Show HN: Checklist of over 100 directories to submit your startup

#53

Post by eruci »

gnicholas wrote: post #51

A couple years ago, I saw a similar submission list for startups. Having recently launched, I took the list very seriously — checking out the sites and ranking them in order of desirability, then submitting to a couple sites each week with language that I had tailored to appeal to each site based on what they covered. Nothing happened. A month or two later, I decided this was a waste of time. But before closing the r…

Now they will do that for you for a $89 fee. "LET US SUBMIT FOR YOU 89$" A startup about startups about startups.

Re: Show HN: Checklist of over 100 directories to submit your startup

#54

Post by city41 »

gnicholas wrote: post #50

What's the point of "submitting" to f6s? I only ever use them when I'm entering into a startup competition run through their site. I never thought of them as a place to submit startups other than this. Seeing a site like this on the list makes me question the usefulness of other sites that I've not heard of. edit: Also, some of the FB groups are either completely inactive (last post was months ago) or are satire (one…

I'd argue what's the point of submitting to 99% of these? Drive by visits rarely net anything, and I'd be willing to bet most of these won't even generate drive bys.

Re: Show HN: Checklist of over 100 directories to submit your startup

#55

Post by smt88 »

gnicholas wrote: post #51

A couple years ago, I saw a similar submission list for startups. Having recently launched, I took the list very seriously — checking out the sites and ranking them in order of desirability, then submitting to a couple sites each week with language that I had tailored to appeal to each site based on what they covered. Nothing happened. A month or two later, I decided this was a waste of time. But before closing the r…

It sounds like the lesson you learned was to find and pitch potential customers. If that isn't the top of a founder's priority list, there's a fundamental problem occurring.

Re: Show HN: Checklist of over 100 directories to submit your startup

#56

Post by jsonne »

tmoravec wrote: post #10

Why do you think that my _particular_ audience frequents either of these directories? Entrepreneurs should go after their customers, first and foremost. Submitting to irrelevant directories is not only lost time. It's dangerous because it suggests that we are doing something useful and that we don't have to chase the real audience anymore.

If it's B2C and you're going after affluent tech early adopters the folks that frequent these galleries likely are your target market.

Re: Show HN: Checklist of over 100 directories to submit your startup

#57

Post by Alex3917 »

tmoravec wrote: post #10

Why do you think that my _particular_ audience frequents either of these directories? Entrepreneurs should go after their customers, first and foremost. Submitting to irrelevant directories is not only lost time. It's dangerous because it suggests that we are doing something useful and that we don't have to chase the real audience anymore.

There's something to be said for having a product that's stable and bug-free. If the first person to use your product does so in the middle of your first enterprise sale, it's probably not going to go very well.

Re: Show HN: Checklist of over 100 directories to submit your startup

#58

Post by davidw »

p0nce wrote: post #47
mkirklions wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, I posted my website asking for critique, half the users were complaining about my 4s load time and didnt mention a thing about the information presented. Thousands of people use my website a week, apparently they dont care about 4s load times. My actual audience has bothered me to create more content more frequently.

Only on HN I heard that my products were ugly. None of thousands of users ever reported that.

Yep: I have a side project that I used stock bootstrap with. People on HN invariably complain about that. Actual users? Not one, ever.

Re: Show HN: Checklist of over 100 directories to submit your startup

#59

Post by rainbowmverse »

goatherders wrote: post #48
rainbowmverse wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some types of company see penalties (or cleanup cost) as a cost of doing business. If they make > $10k to incur $10k in costs, then it works out. It's a faulty way of seeing things, but businesses like that tend to have a fog around them. They don't see the icebergs coming.

Why is it faulty?

Those fines usually exist for a reason. Just because you can pay your way out of consequences for the negative externalities doesn't mean it's good for anyone but your shareholders.

Re: Show HN: Checklist of over 100 directories to submit your startup

#60

Post by gnicholas »

smt88 wrote: post #55
gnicholas wrote: post #51

A couple years ago, I saw a similar submission list for startups. Having recently launched, I took the list very seriously — checking out the sites and ranking them in order of desirability, then submitting to a couple sites each week with language that I had tailored to appeal to each site based on what they covered. Nothing happened. A month or two later, I decided this was a waste of time. But before closing the r…

It sounds like the lesson you learned was to find and pitch potential customers. If that isn't the top of a founder's priority list, there's a fundamental problem occurring.

Any site that has a decent amount of text on it is a potential customer of ours, so all of the websites we submitted to could have licensed our tech.

The only difference is that I used a short pitch for the last ones and long pitches for the first ones.

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