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Ask HN: What's your top growth strategy that helped grow your startup?

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Re: Ask HN: What's your top growth strategy that helped grow your startup?

#81

Post by ci5er »

ezekg wrote: post #14
chrischattin wrote: post #5

Good old fashioned sales and word of mouth.

I'm learning this the hard way. I thought the hardest part was developing the product.

> I thought the hardest part was developing the product.

I'm curious: Why did you think that? There are articles, from time-to-time, that decry this notion, and yet I find that young/first-time entrepreneurs often think this. Since it's such a common notion - I've become generally increasingly curious about how it (this idea) is spread. How it gets into people's heads. Any thoughts?

Re: Ask HN: What's your top growth strategy that helped grow your startup?

#82

Post by WA »

79d697i6fdif wrote: post #72
antoniuschan99 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi, I am a coder and want to get better at marketing. Can you shoot me an email as well? Thanks!

At this point I think I'm just going to start the blog I always planned but never did :). I've got about 10 pretty long articles buried in my docs folder about marketing and a bunch of other nonsense. I was never CEO/VP of a company but I've always done my best to "see the forest through the trees" with this kind of stuff.

Do it, please :)

Re: Ask HN: What's your top growth strategy that helped grow your startup?

#83

Post by WA »

79d697i6fdif wrote: post #18
nanijoe wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What did you do to turn things around though?

1) Remade website to be more professional looking, faster, more focused towards SEO, mobile friendly. I could write many pages on this :) but following online guides will get you in the ballpark 2) Started writing interesting content. Truly good content is a PITA and you need to be a decent writer to make something compelling, but our first good article got us more traffic than the entire site with over 100 content p…

> 2) Started writing interesting content. Truly good content is a PITA and you need to be a decent writer to make something compelling, but our first good article got us more traffic than the entire site with over 100 content pages.

What was different with that piece of content? Was it only the content or did you also promote/tailor that content to new channels?

Re: Ask HN: What's your top growth strategy that helped grow your startup?

#84

Post by zinssmeister »

We are a marketplace for great projects looking for great designers (https://www.designinc.com), something that needs to grow on two ends. What has worked really well for us is putting out high quality content marketing. Our YouTube channel has a weekly show that is shot with great sound and video quality. When we write blog posts we try to be very specific and insightful rather than pushing lots of cheaper/easier content every week.

Another great channel for us is SEO. Here we also take the high quality over quantity route by building fewer but more insightful landing pages. We want people to spend more time on our content and get value from it.

Re: Ask HN: What's your top growth strategy that helped grow your startup?

#85

Post by desireco42 »

paskster wrote: post #10

We are creating an online marketplace for short term work in Germany ( https://www.instaff.jobs ). Businesses can publish their jobs on our platform, jobbers apply with their profile and then these businesses can book the jobbers online. We take care of quality management and employment overhead (working contracting, payroll accounting, etc.). We made close to 3 Mill. EUR revenue in 2016. We acquire 90 % of our custo…

Can you clarify how you are making money? I assume every connection is paid somehow but don't speak German.

Re: Ask HN: What's your top growth strategy that helped grow your startup?

#86

Post by hobofan »

desireco42 wrote: post #85
paskster wrote: post #10

We are creating an online marketplace for short term work in Germany ( https://www.instaff.jobs ). Businesses can publish their jobs on our platform, jobbers apply with their profile and then these businesses can book the jobbers online. We take care of quality management and employment overhead (working contracting, payroll accounting, etc.). We made close to 3 Mill. EUR revenue in 2016. We acquire 90 % of our custo…

Can you clarify how you are making money? I assume every connection is paid somehow but don't speak German.

https://en.instaff.jobs/costs-and-benefits

> And if you book staff, you only pay the gross salary of the employee plus the InStaff service fee which ranges between 21 %(for Professionals) to 43 % (other Staff) - there are no additional costs.

Re: Ask HN: What's your top growth strategy that helped grow your startup?

#87

Post by benjaminfox »

reflect wrote: post #69

For us ( http://www.startupdaybook.com ) a few things have been very effective -- but it did take a lot of trial and error to find those few things. BetaList and Reddit have been a big driver of signups as they have the exact audience we are looking to help (startups) and a wide audience. Blogging has also been a big part of getting signups. Creating helpful posts on Medium with a small product mention at the bottom…

Thanks for sharing. Which subreddits helped you?

Re: Ask HN: What's your top growth strategy that helped grow your startup?

#88

Post by ezekg »

ci5er wrote: post #81
ezekg wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm learning this the hard way. I thought the hardest part was developing the product.

> I thought the hardest part was developing the product. I'm curious: Why did you think that? There are articles, from time-to-time, that decry this notion, and yet I find that young/first-time entrepreneurs often think this. Since it's such a common notion - I've become generally increasingly curious about how it (this idea) is spread. How it gets into people's heads. Any thoughts?

You also read time and time again of a developer building a project they've put little marketing effort into banking them 5k/mo while allowing them to quit their full time job.

I think after putting a huge amount of time and effort into a project, you just kind of convince yourself that it's good enough to sell itself.

Re: Ask HN: What's your top growth strategy that helped grow your startup?

#89

Post by hobofan »

logicallee wrote: post #56
throwaway-6006 wrote: post #47

Would someone please suspend this account already. He is not a "YC tech manager" as his profile implies (assuming he hasn't changed it just now). Based on comment history, he appears to be a troll that has hijacked a dormant account with high karma. Frankly any account that falsely suggests a YC affiliation should be suspended without warning. If you have 1000+ karma, please use a secure password. Warning: red herrin…

Hi - the above is very obvious satire: I am showcasing how insane European VC's are. You can see another take from me on this same theme by reading this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12198883 You can read that and then read my reply (scroll down to about the third comment), part of which I'll quote "you've given a lot of hard data but fail to draw the obvious correct conclusions, that the reason you h…

I feel like I understand what you are trying to say, but I still don't see the connection to OP's comment.

Re: Ask HN: What's your top growth strategy that helped grow your startup?

#90

Post by paskster »

desireco42 wrote: post #85
paskster wrote: post #10

We are creating an online marketplace for short term work in Germany ( https://www.instaff.jobs ). Businesses can publish their jobs on our platform, jobbers apply with their profile and then these businesses can book the jobbers online. We take care of quality management and employment overhead (working contracting, payroll accounting, etc.). We made close to 3 Mill. EUR revenue in 2016. We acquire 90 % of our custo…

Can you clarify how you are making money? I assume every connection is paid somehow but don't speak German.

We charge a markup (between 21 % to 43 %) on top of the employees wage.

Example: You book a promoter for 3 days. The promoters works 7 hours per day and earns 10 EUR per hour. Then his total gross wage is 210 EUR and our markup is 90,30 EUR (43 %) on top. So you as customer pay a total of 300,30 EUR to us.

We compete with traditional employment agencies who usually charge a markup of 50% to 200%.

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