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Ask HN: How did you acquire your first 100 users?

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Re: Ask HN: How did you acquire your first 100 users?

#131

Post by SRasch »

We provide on-demand freelance services, customers are b2b

Got first 100 by

1) Friends: first asking a few to try; then telling about the idea at parties (also hosted a "launch party" at home, etc. Then at last emailing whole LinkedIn-contactlist. First couple were free, rest more or less discounted but paid. 2) PR. Had a few early newspaper articles when we had initial traction which gave us perhaps 20 customers each. Also posted the article to our facebook, which I think perhaps got us half of those.

(We also tried a lot of other stuff that didnt work, including a big cold call campaign and paying for leads via ads, but it didnt yield much results as it is very hard to do well)

Re: Ask HN: How did you acquire your first 100 users?

#132

Post by SyneRyder »

blurrywh wrote: post #78
jtraffic wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. W…

I didn't downvote you, but your post seemed narrow-sighted, focused on a single goldmine as if it's the only one that will ever exist. If obscurity is your only defence, it isn't a strong competitive moat. Better to have a technique for finding lots of goldmines.

> If you had ever found a goldmine in the past you might understand. And if yes, please share this goldmine.

I did this once on HN, over a year ago. I shared an exact technique that made me a 50%+ return during the year after I posted it. (Okay, maybe that's more like a tiny mini treasure chest, but it was still a money maker.) I'm not sure anyone even read it. Even if you give people a goldmine the majority won't be in a position to take advantage of it. Or perhaps they have better opportunities.

Sharing tactics can help you make contact with other interesting people, who are open to collaboration or cross-promotion and who provide you with opportunities in return. It's basically the Patio11 / Patrick McKenzie strategy.

Re: Ask HN: How did you acquire your first 100 users?

#133

Post by mezod »

lloeki wrote: post #103
mezod wrote: post #69

I asked for honest feedback for my app https://everydaycheck.com on a couple of subreddits where people are trying to get disciplined and improve themselves. Since it was my personal goal too I could easily relate and that brought a lot of signups, great feedback and most importantly, engaged users!

Looks nice, feels a bit like the old Lift app, which sadly turned into a coaching marketplace social thing.

never saw the old Lift app but it is not the first time that someone names it when seeing everydaycheck :p

be assured this won't turn into a coaching marketplace. My goal is to charge a symbolic yearly fee and keep it as it is. After all, it does one thing and it does it right!

Re: Ask HN: How did you acquire your first 100 users?

#135

Post by flaie »

steveridout wrote: post #7

These got Readlang's first 100 users: 1. This post to a language learning forum: http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T... 2. This post to r/LanguageLearning: https://www.reddit.com/r/languagelearning/comments/1b08ly/re... If there's a subreddit where your potential audience hangs out that's a good bet. Try to be honest, humble, and non-spammy.

I didn't knew about your website, and I was planning to improve my Italian soon. Seems I'll be starting right now, and it comes really handy to read the newspapers.

Good stuff!

Re: Ask HN: How did you acquire your first 100 users?

#136

Post by aianus »

tuddman wrote: post #124
cmorelli wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

offering to build (tiny! like, 5-minute one-offs!) features _just for them_ sort of blows their minds It seems worth noting that this can also be a dangerous strategy. It's really easy to fall into the trap of giving each customer exactly what they ask for, rather than learning what they actually need. If gone unchecked, this is the sort of product strategy that easily leads to disastrous results for product usabilit…

> It's really easy to fall into the trap of giving each customer exactly what they ask for ... this is the sort of product strategy that easily leads to disastrous results. do you know any product/company examples where this was/is the case?

Horse carriage makers, Kodak, Blackberry

Re: Ask HN: How did you acquire your first 100 users?

#137

Post by smaddox »

cylinder wrote: post #82
_d8fd wrote: post #25

tl;dr -- offer customers something they can't buy at a price their willing to pay. My personal, non-software example was to identify an untapped opportunity in my field, technical recruiting. My clients had 20 to 100 employees, no internal technical recruiter, had already recruited their core team, has run out of organically generated people to interview, and had raised a Series B or later in funding. In 2010, the on…

Wow that is really interesting, how did you manage to sell them a paid (hourly) service when as you said they had firms knocking down their door doing it on contingency?

Not the OP, but commission-based recruiting seems to incentivise the wrong kind of recruiting, i.e. "find someone we can shove down their throat". I would personally rather pay an experienced recruiter by the hour, even if it meant fewer (hopefully higher quality) leads.

Re: Ask HN: How did you acquire your first 100 users?

#139

Post by jtraffic »

blurrywh wrote: post #78
jtraffic wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. W…

I think I can see your perspective now, though I don't agree.

> If you find the map straight to a goldmine, why should you share it?

It's not that you should share it. It's that the risk of people flooding to your strategy and ruining ROI is low, so if you want to share it for some reason (e.g., contributing to the community, being nice), I don't think you should worry.

Your example is artificial. In attempting to justify a fear that I find overly common, you've provided an imaginary scenario where that fear might be justified. I don't think it addresses the argument well. Plus, even in your example, I think the risks are low. Lots of people have to read your comment, believe you're telling the truth, and most importantly, be set up to quickly use the information to drive traffic to their own site. Chances are their products aren't exactly the same as yours, and the conversion rates might not be so high for them. Many will anticipate this and not even try. Everyone else will just extract the higher level "insight" from the keywords and move on.

I'll share a story. There is a very successful company called Ravean, they sell coats and sleeping bags with heated linings. They've done several million on Kickstarter over the past few years. The founder of Ravean did some interviews and explained his ad strategy. He said initially he tried advertising with keywords targeting camping and outdoor consumers. Eventually, after burning up 7 or 8 grand, he erased all his keywords and targeted crowdfunding enthusiasts with keywords like "Kickstarter", "Indiegogo" and "crowdfunding." He claims his conversion rates jumped way, way up. In the interviews, he says "I should charge for this advice." Now he does charge for it:

https://ravean.com/crowdfunding/

So, even though there is a freely accessible interview, online, where this guy gives away his knowledge, he still makes money selling the same advice to other people. There is such a sea of information out on the web that any one thing is very likely to get lost.

The Ravean advertising trick is as close to the scenario you mentioned, and here I am, sharing it with HN. But how many people will really read this comment? How many will be doing crowdfunding campaigns in the near future? How many will immediately jump on the advice? Will it move the CPC needle? I doubt it.

Re: Ask HN: How did you acquire your first 100 users?

#140

Post by welanes »

codingdave wrote: post #119
welanes wrote: post #88

1. I scoured the reviews of similar apps and listed the main feature requests that were being stonewalled and implemented them. 2. I then set up keyword alerts for Reddit and Twitter and when somebody mentioned [similar app] I popped in and suggested they try Lanes which, btw, has feature [similar app] has not implemented . 3. I got lucky^. Photos of Lanes began appearing on Tumblr blogs (the #studyblr community) and…

As a side note to #2, I tend to monitor reddit for people who do that in response to my stuff...I watch discussions on reddit, and when people pop on just to pimp their own competitive products, I remind them via links to reddiquette that such behavior is not appropriate. Reddit is a funny place in that they'll stick with their own, and wait for you to implement a feature vs. jump to someone they think is on reddit s…

Yes, I should have stipulated you're not simply chasing every mention of a competitor and shouting 'me too'. That's lame, and - as you mention - mostly worthless.

Rather you're keeping an eye on the convo so that should somebody's point of frustration intersect with your solution you can let them know and see if they agree.

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