Bought them from India, like every other company.
Could you be more specific, for those of us that are not used to "buy" customers from India ?
Probably a Silicon Valley joke: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-W0CBOGnnI
Ask HN: How did you acquire your first 100 users?
71–80 of 189 posts
Re: Ask HN: How did you acquire your first 100 users?
#72Facebook Ads -> Blog Posts/Lead Magnets -> Email List
Bootstrapped Solo founder. Beta launch in June 2016. Full launch in December 2016. Crossed $200k in ARR last week.
Re: Ask HN: How did you acquire your first 100 users?
#73Nice question. I am just wondering if anyone will disclose their current killer acquisition hacks. Moreover, the question heavily depends on your business, so is it B2B, B2C, online, app, bot, etc.? However, a good read on this which tackles all ways of user acquisition/Marketing is 'Traction' from the DuckDuckGo founder. It's not an exciting book but gives an ok overview. You could also just start with the channel w…
> I am just wondering if anyone will disclose their current killer acquisition hacks. I see this attitude all the time. Why are people so worried? The fear is this weird chain of reasoning: As soon as you say it tons of people will automatically conclude it is a good idea -> tons of them will be in a position to execute it -> people will flood to the strategy and somehow take away the returns because it is a zero-sum…
>I am just wondering if anyone will disclose their current killer acquisition hacks.
I was also confused by this statement, but for a different reason. There is, of course, a mixture of a science and an art in promoting one's own product - but in the end, it should catch on if it actually provides value. A "hack" in this context sounds to me like what you'd call some sort of trick to peddle a product that isn't meant to provide value.
Re: Ask HN: How did you acquire your first 100 users?
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
[Readlang] You are missing a sign up link on your home page... I can sign up after installing the chrome extension, but that's just strange.
Alongside the "Install Web Reader" link there's a "Start Learning" link which will take you into the web-app and allow you to sign up. I figured "Start Learning" would be more inviting than "Sign Up" but this is something it might be worth AB testing.
I know, but almost every site has sign-in and sign-up link at the home page. I am a developer, but was confused how to sign up. I thought it was some kind of invitation model... I do not see any problem with putting a sign up link on the homepage. The more ways for your to sign up, the better.
Re: Ask HN: How did you acquire your first 100 users?
#75/r/wow got Guilded's[0] first 100 users. Reddit has a (well-earned) reputation for being very hostile to self-promotion, but I think it's under-appreciated how charitable and enthusiastic redditors are, too. If redditors can tell you put your heart into something, you don't sound like Lord Business, and you actually listen to their feedback, they'll go above and beyond to help you out. Users like this are invaluable,…
I think the fine line regarding self promotion on Reddit is about whether you're part of the community you post in. If you're clearly a community member and have made something to solve a common problem, that tends to be received well, it seems, while if you come in as an outsider clearly trying to sell something to make money, you'll be rejected.
Re: Ask HN: How did you acquire your first 100 users?
#76Bought them from India, like every other company.
That sounds like a surefire way of getting worthless customers. If your customers are not your target audience then they will never engage with your product and that's worse than not having customers.
Re: Ask HN: How did you acquire your first 100 users?
#77I seeded my site with scraped data for quite a while. Once organic started coming in and twitter referrals and hits increasing I added an email subscription.
Re: Ask HN: How did you acquire your first 100 users?
#78Nice question. I am just wondering if anyone will disclose their current killer acquisition hacks. Moreover, the question heavily depends on your business, so is it B2B, B2C, online, app, bot, etc.? However, a good read on this which tackles all ways of user acquisition/Marketing is 'Traction' from the DuckDuckGo founder. It's not an exciting book but gives an ok overview. You could also just start with the channel w…
> I am just wondering if anyone will disclose their current killer acquisition hacks. I see this attitude all the time. Why are people so worried? The fear is this weird chain of reasoning: As soon as you say it tons of people will automatically conclude it is a good idea -> tons of them will be in a position to execute it -> people will flood to the strategy and somehow take away the returns because it is a zero-sum…
> I see this attitude all the time. Why are people so worried?
If you find the map straight to a goldmine, why should you share it?
Example: Last month you found a new way to target on FB ads (=> mix of ad creatives, country and interest), with tons of traffic at ultra low CPC. The space is quite popular and you are surprised yourself why no one else found this way. Conversions are sky-high and it seems not to end.
Why should you share this? If you share you will destroy the low CPC within days. If you had ever found a goldmine in the past you might understand. And if yes, please share this goldmine.
You can make this example for every Marketing channel. People never share current tactics, only old stuff which isn't working anymore.
Edit: Why the downvote? I try to explain opportunistic behaviour and I understand and even agree that this behaviour isn't nice or something we would expect. But downvoting seems to be easier than replying properly...
Re: Ask HN: How did you acquire your first 100 users?
#79I’ll second the PG advice: do things that don’t scale is by far the most effective tool I’ve found for finding _and keeping_ users. I’m building small-business tools for fringe retail [0] as a side-project, and those users are usually more than willing to at least investigate new apps if they even have a chance of solving some real problem their business faces. Emailing them personally with a pitch based on a few min…
> For every new customer they can sign up that converts, I credit their account with a few free months. It totally won’t scale [...] I don't know the market/business, but why not? isn't that what Dropbox does at scale?
The other interpretation of this, if you have millions of paid users, that are getting 5 months free.. that's 5 months of you paying the bill and not getting any revenue. That wont scale in terms of maintainability. At least that is what I assumed when I read that.
Re: Ask HN: How did you acquire your first 100 users?
#80I’ll second the PG advice: do things that don’t scale is by far the most effective tool I’ve found for finding _and keeping_ users. I’m building small-business tools for fringe retail [0] as a side-project, and those users are usually more than willing to at least investigate new apps if they even have a chance of solving some real problem their business faces. Emailing them personally with a pitch based on a few min…
Alternative side, as a big company when I get a nice small startup that tries to fit our needs that way, I keep them close.
It's like the whole "you owe bank money" story. If you owe the back $1,0000 you have a problem, if you owe them 1 million, they have a problem.
In my experience, if you're that startup's largest client, they'll bend over backwards to help you succeed.