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Zero to a Million Users in 15 Days

kik.com

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Re: Zero to a Million Users in 15 Days

#41

Post by sdizdar »

Congratulation to Kik. Great!

But I'm concern about this service and privacy. It uses same tactic as Buzz (which tactic I didn't like).

Here is my understanding - please correct me if I'm wrong:

First, Kik ties in a person's username with their email address. Kik then sorts through the person's addressbook to find potential friends. This is kinda privacy issue because a user may not want someone that is in their addressbook to know they have a Kik account. But other people (my stock broker, tax consultant) will because if they have your email address then they also have your Kik username without authorization or adding that person to your friends list.

Is there a way to disable the above approach - maybe to ask which people will see you on Kik?

Re: Zero to a Million Users in 15 Days

#42

Post by ugh »

AlexPD wrote: post #27

Can really see why you'd use this, except for being able to see when somebody has read your message - which personally I hate because then people will be on my back wondering why I didn't reply right away. That's a reason I wouldn't use it. I use a multi-protocol IM client on my phone, which has a constant link in the background to my GTalk, Windows Live Messenger, AIM, Skype, etc. - That way people can IM me any tim…

It’s a big problem for me that there are no good multi-protocol IM apps for iOS. To say nothing of the general horridness of all single-protocoll IM apps (Sykpe excluded).

I could understand that a great IM app could have some draw.

Re: Zero to a Million Users in 15 Days

#43

Post by ugh »

citricsquid wrote: post #39
bdittmer wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Errr, going from 55k users to a million users inside of 15 days is still an impressive feat...

Which is why my comment includes: this is incredible either way I'm just saying there is a difference. 55,000 people instantly aware of your new product who used your old product is a massive boost compared to 0 people knowing about your product when you release it. Anyway this is a fruitless discussion, it's impressive, just different!

The article said “re-launch”, I don’t think that’s very misleading.

Re: Zero to a Million Users in 15 Days

#44

Post by OmarIsmail »

ted_livingston wrote: post #32

Hi All, Ted from Kik. Just wanted to jump in and answer a few questions: On October 21, 2010 we launched a completely new service. The only thing that was the same between new Kik and old Kik was the name and the app store accounts. Users from the old system (about 55K active in the last week before the hard switch over) were notified that the new service was available and that the old one would soon be shut down. Ab…

Congratulations from a fellow AC'er. At this rate you guys will probably be moving out in the very near future. Really impressive stuff.

Re: Zero to a Million Users in 15 Days

#46

Post by terryjsmith »

karanbhangui wrote: post #37
terryjsmith wrote: post #26

This story is completely mis-leading. They certainly had users before 15 days ago [1]. The product was developed in an incubator in the Winter 2009 class [2]. They have relaunched and revamped it, but to start from a clean slate and say you had zero users with no disclosure or information about your past makes this story blatantly false. It's a shame because it still would have been a good story without the reset. [1…

From what I understand, there is no connection between the old application and the new one. So it's not as misleading as you portray.

The application is actually just revamped as I understand it (based on the above review by Startup North); maybe in a major way but still based on a previous product. As Ted from Kik has responded below, they e-mailed nearly all of their 55K previous users, though very very few of them converted.

Their history deserves mentioning and is likely what put them in a position to be able to launch, market and scale effectively. The users may not be the same, but the strategies and the tactics used to get there are likely based on previous experiences as well as having some great people get them this far.

Obviously this community isn't the target of their post, but I would be even more interested in hearing the whole story: how they went from zero to 55K customers in 7 months, lost almost all of them, and then scaled it back up to a million users in two weeks

Re: Zero to a Million Users in 15 Days

#47

Post by bsk »

ted_livingston wrote: post #32

Hi All, Ted from Kik. Just wanted to jump in and answer a few questions: On October 21, 2010 we launched a completely new service. The only thing that was the same between new Kik and old Kik was the name and the app store accounts. Users from the old system (about 55K active in the last week before the hard switch over) were notified that the new service was available and that the old one would soon be shut down. Ab…

Why did you decide not to migrate the existing users?

Re: Zero to a Million Users in 15 Days

#49

Post by blntechie »

One thing about social apps is that once your friends all are signed up to a new product and settled in there, there is no purpose for you alone to different be in a different app. You wont' have the social part in it. Kik, with it's whatever marketing seems to be got popular with many people and it might become defacto for them for near future. And it will get tough for everyone to move to an alternate app. As many of your friends start using Kik, you will start using Kik, Facebook/Twitter anyone?

Re: Zero to a Million Users in 15 Days

#50

Post by msh »

ugh wrote: post #42
AlexPD wrote: post #27

Can really see why you'd use this, except for being able to see when somebody has read your message - which personally I hate because then people will be on my back wondering why I didn't reply right away. That's a reason I wouldn't use it. I use a multi-protocol IM client on my phone, which has a constant link in the background to my GTalk, Windows Live Messenger, AIM, Skype, etc. - That way people can IM me any tim…

It’s a big problem for me that there are no good multi-protocol IM apps for iOS. To say nothing of the general horridness of all single-protocoll IM apps (Sykpe excluded). I could understand that a great IM app could have some draw.

meebo does multi-protocol, they support most protocols except for skype.
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