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My Startup (WindyCitizen) named one of Chicago's New Essentials

chicago.timeout.com

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Re: My Startup (WindyCitizen) named one of Chicago's New Essentials

#21

Post by brandnewlow »

sachinag wrote: post #17
brandnewlow wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes indeed! Last night's HN Chicago meetup was a lot of fun. This is the third or fourth one we've had. There's a great mix of bootstrappers, VC-types, CTO-types, and gainfully employed devs looking to make the leap.

Where the fuck were the gainfully employed devs looking to make the leap when I was there? I didn't want to move to Boston... And it's baseball season, to boot. :(

There's always a gap between what people tell you over beers and burgers at an HN meetup and what they're actually willing to do...as you found firsthand...

Re: My Startup (WindyCitizen) named one of Chicago's New Essentials

#22

Post by brandnewlow »

ashishk wrote: post #19
brandnewlow wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great question. Someone asked me about funding last night at the HN Chicago meetup. In all honesty, I haven't thought a whole lot about it. I reached out to alumni entrepreneurs from my university when I was starting Windy Citizen to get advice. One of them, a guy who works in VC in the energy field, pointed out that I had no clue what I was doing, so: a) Evaluating a technical partner would be extremely difficult. b…

Could you elaborate on your experiences of building out an ad sales program/team? How much traffic did you have when you started selling ads? What type of CPM are you able to see? The reason I ask is that I run a niche community site that gets a decent amount of pageviews but I'm not sure how much I could make by selling ads against it.

I found my ad sales person by asking for help on HN. See my post further downthread for the link to that thread.

I've interviewed maybe half a dozen sales people and worked with 2-3 who didn't work out. I have no advice other than to say it's really hard to find someone good. A great ad sales person is someone who wants to make a lot of money. Those people typically steer clear of early stage ventures because there might not be a lot of money to be made. That leaves people who are ok with not making a lot of money. If you hire those people, you won't make a lot of money.

I started selling ads on day one. It's always possible to find someone at some price who will want to advertise on your web site. We see extraordinarily high CPMs on our site because we work very hard to sell them on the quality and uniqueness of our audience. Basic salesmanship stuff.

Re: My Startup (WindyCitizen) named one of Chicago's New Essentials

#24

Post by sdevlin »

Jun8 wrote: post #16
brandnewlow wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes indeed! Last night's HN Chicago meetup was a lot of fun. This is the third or fourth one we've had. There's a great mix of bootstrappers, VC-types, CTO-types, and gainfully employed devs looking to make the leap.

Shucks, I didn't know we had HN Chicago meetings. I joined the Google Group. Will be there next time.

I'm in the same boat. Could you post a link to said group, if it's not too much trouble?

EDIT: Found it. For any looking: http://groups.google.com/group/hn-chicago

Re: My Startup (WindyCitizen) named one of Chicago's New Essentials

#25

Post by brandnewlow »

ryanb wrote: post #23

The traffic growth is impressive. How did you first start getting traction? What methods did you use to promote the site early on?

A lot of that is the secret sauce. But direct e-mails to people who might be interested in your content, and a lot of them, is really the only tool that's worked.

Re: My Startup (WindyCitizen) named one of Chicago's New Essentials

#28

Post by cpher »

brandnewlow wrote: post #13
Jun8 wrote: post #11

Congratulations! I see GrubHub is there, too. It's great to see the increased number of startups in Chicago, which is, you know, not a big startup hub.

Yes indeed! Last night's HN Chicago meetup was a lot of fun. This is the third or fourth one we've had. There's a great mix of bootstrappers, VC-types, CTO-types, and gainfully employed devs looking to make the leap.

Had a great time last night at the meetup. Didn't get a chance to meet you though! FYI, I'm in the latter group above.
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