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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?

#111

Post by WA »

throwawaydbfif wrote: post #94
WA wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

I can't really say without giving my details, and as you can see I like throwaways :) especially when I'm at work. The difference was that the rest of our content was bland marketspeak whitewash garbage stuff. "Expand your client list 5x TODAY" type bs. Also useless PDF whitepapers on project we completed. Pro tip, nobody reads PDF unless it's the only content available, and on Google that's rarely true :). The new a…

Thanks so much for writing this out. I actually do a lot of the stuff you mentioned here already with comparable success.

Google is my main traffic driver and I never had much luck with content shared through social media or any other channels. For me, it's 90% Google as well and some articles are there for 8 years already. 3-5 articles out of a hundred or so drive 80% of new signups.

I treat my articles like shopping windows: I revisit and refine them whenever I see fit. I write new content mostly to show Google that something is happening on my website. I lost rankings on some articles, because I didn't publish a lot through 2016.

Anyways, your comment is a good description on how one can succeed by making their customers' problems their main SEO/traffic strategy.

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

#112

Post by logicallee »

logicallee wrote: post #41
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…

I notice that you have made EUR 3 million in 2016 using a scalable hands-off model where you can turn adwords directly into cash without needing to own or touch any inventory, meet anyone, or have any infrastructure beyond a website, which you have built. You have also solved the chicken and egg problem, since high-quality companies will only take the time to craft thoughtful and serious searches if you have a pool o…

The replies I mentioned have been (rightfully) detached from this thread.

I am adding this reply to make crystal-clear that the above is SATIRE about how hard it is for European companies to raise money from European investors. (I'm not a European VC.) You guys are killing it. I hope investors believe in you too.

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

#113

Post by adamqureshi »

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.

I'll build you a killer landing page for it if you do. email me. We work something out, email in profile.

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

#114

Post by tucaz »

brilliantcode wrote: post #62
rsweeney21 wrote: post #23

Our strategy was to not try and find a shortcut or hack to grow our sales. We just ground it out by cold calling/cold emailing, paid ads, etc. The problem with shortcuts is they are usually not repeatable or scalable. For example, a viral video or website can provide a boost of growth, but you can't predict if the next thing you produce will also go viral. What you want to find is a predictable way to generate sales…

holy shit this is by far the most valuable comment I came across of all time on HN

Also what all small companies should do before raising money to "accelerate growth". Lots of them just burn through other people's money without knowing what to do.

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

#115

Post by rsweeney21 »

cynusx wrote: post #104
rsweeney21 wrote: post #23

Our strategy was to not try and find a shortcut or hack to grow our sales. We just ground it out by cold calling/cold emailing, paid ads, etc. The problem with shortcuts is they are usually not repeatable or scalable. For example, a viral video or website can provide a boost of growth, but you can't predict if the next thing you produce will also go viral. What you want to find is a predictable way to generate sales…

did you guys use experienced sales people?

Prior to product market fit, the founders need to be selling. Once you have product market fit, you need people who already know how to sell your type of product into your target market.

That was a mistake that we made. We started by hiring smart people and trying to let them figure out how to sell. I strongly recommend NOT doing that. In startupland, time is your greatest enemy and you don't have time for people to learn. Also, you probably aren't a sales expert, so you can't teach them what they need to know to be great.

Another mistake we made was hiring people who were good at selling other things. Medical device sales, consumer product sales, SaaS sales to SMB, SaaS sales to enterprise, etc. Once again, great sales people in other types of sales can learn to sell into your market, but it can take a long time and you probably don't have the expertise to teach them.

We spent 12 months trying to use smart people with no experience and sales people that were great at selling into different markets and generated essentially $0 in sales. We were ready to give up. Finally we hired a senior sales person from a competitor that was selling a very similar product, into the same market (med-large business) and we've taken off since then.

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

#116

Post by desireco42 »

paskster wrote: post #90
desireco42 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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%.

Thank you for your answer and explanation.

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

#117

Post by kristineberth »

shostack wrote: post #49
throwawaydbfif wrote: post #8

If your product doesn't suck and it won't sell you suck at marketing. "Growth hacking" is just a SV koolaid rebranding of marketing. It wasn't a start-up but a consulting company I worked at that had stagnated for about 7 years. 6 months later we had redone our whole marketing setup. New site, new branding, new software, lots of advertisement $ shifted. A year later revenue was almost 3x. We raised our rates so profi…

As a fellow experienced marketer I would implore you to not use the term "marketing guru." The word "guru" has a really bad connotation with all of the info product snake oil salesmen and wannabe marketers out there. The reality is that marketing is an increasingly specialized and technical domain requiring knowledge of coding, data, etc. and it can be hard enough as it is to help people trust we're not all scammers…

The problem with finding great marketing people is that there's no barrier to entry into the profession. Anyone can (and does) say that they're a 'marketing expert,' a 'growth hacker' or a 'marketing guru' [gag]. To be great at it, yes, people need to have technical ability. But they also need a sort of sixth-sense intuition (visual sensibility, language skills, an understanding of psychology) that can't be taught or bought.

In my decade in the field I've observed almost zero correlation between marketing-specific education and ability. Experience yes, but education no.

It's a frustrating profession to be in sometimes because often only great marketers can spot other great marketers. Meanwhile sh*tty ones ruin the field's rep for everyone else.

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

#118

Post by kristineberth »

nixy wrote: post #42

For B2B: be local. Have presence where your customers are. B2B relations are so much easier if you are local, so you'll be rewarded if you are able to open up offices close to strategic customers or in potentially big markets.

Or travel and meet face-to-face. Works just as well.

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

#119

Post by yesimahuman »

williamle8300 wrote: post #102
yesimahuman wrote: post #51

Find a passionate community, make something awesome for them, get their contact info (email, twitter, etc.), stay engaged w them, improve and engage consistently. Have used this process for a number of products and it works very well in the beginning stages.

Some people are product visionaries... while I agree with your approach for market-driven products, what would your advice be for people who start with a product instead of a userbase?

Think about it as starting with a product in a market. If you can't identify a market, then you should stop and do something else. A market doesn't have to be big and vague, it can be small. For example, people who develop apps with Angular JS (to use an example from my company). You can then expand from there assuming you have a vision that allows for that and the market isn't only as big as the small one you started with.

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

#120

Post by zanek »

beaconstudios wrote: post #11
applecore wrote: post #4

You want to grow your startup? It's much easier when you Make Something People Want.

true, but marketing is not superseded completely by product quality and product/market fit. You also need to make people aware of your product and make a strong value proposition.

I know everyone may say these are outliers, but Google, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, etc all had ZERO marketing and acquired millions of users. Part of me thinks that alot of what people are saying about marketing applies to companies with a weak product or little differentiation. A monster, highly wanted product does appear to be the the exception
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