61–70 of 107 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I believe the primary way they succeeded was giving away money. When you signed up they'd give you $10. Later it was reduced to $5. You could also get that amount by signing up friends
This is the same way Square's cash app has grown very fast to 50 million users, buy giving away $5 to each new user referred.
Discord's first cohort of users came from the final fantasy XIV subreddit - after a friend of the cofounder posted there after trying out the app. It's been all uphill from there.
Sorry to be that guy, but 'things were uphill from ' means something got super difficult (as in running uphill is hard) - not sure if that's what you were shooting for.
> Below, you’ll find first-hand accounts of how essentially every major consumer app acquired their earliest users Did anyone follow through on the links? Some of these "first-hand accounts" just redirect back to this guy's blog, some of them are just blurbs from other media. I looked at the Etsy one and it's a story by an economist with no first hand accounts by anyone at Etsy.
A strategy I've been thinking of for my startup (10-20 WAU currently ) is going through old HN discussions that are relevant to my product, finding people who I think would be interested in it based on their comments, and emailing them with a quote from their comment and an explanation of why I think they specifically would be interested. (and then ask them to try it out & give feedback). I thought of this since I wa…
I had zero problems acquiring first 1K customers for my product. Just spammed some relevant forums. Actually I got way more then 1K this way. Problem was that said amount was not making it worth for me. And acquiring more presented a challenge. Basically lacking external investment to increase market share by whatever means I put that particular product on a diet (invest few hours here and there). Since then it bring…
Do you feel comfortable sharing what the product is?
1) Enough of my products and/or products I made for corporate clients are known one or the other way.
2) I sometimes talk in non tech topics (even tech ones can be rather political when you talk corporate culture).
Given amount of modern snooping by potential clients (comes from experience) I have zero desire to give them a chance to connect two dots.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
But some many online payment companies had already tried and failed at "traditional" growth. PayPal crossed the chasm by essentially bad faith gamesmanship. Nothing illegal, mind you; but I would consider it highly unethical. Not to mention difficult to stop if you're EBay.
Why would it have been difficult to stop for eBay, couldn't they have simply removed the PayPal button from their site if they didn't like it?
I had zero problems acquiring first 1K customers for my product. Just spammed some relevant forums. Actually I got way more then 1K this way. Problem was that said amount was not making it worth for me. And acquiring more presented a challenge. Basically lacking external investment to increase market share by whatever means I put that particular product on a diet (invest few hours here and there). Since then it bring…
I bet the companies using inventive ways to get their first users like the ones listed in the article are in the minority (but certainly make for more interesting stories to read/write about). I launched a SaaS product recently, and after a pretty successful HN launch, I've been trying different ways of marketing. What I learned, and this may be obvious to many, is that the boring path of getting users by gamifying S…
[1] https://ihook.us/docs/check-nintendo-switch-availability
I bet the companies using inventive ways to get their first users like the ones listed in the article are in the minority (but certainly make for more interesting stories to read/write about). I launched a SaaS product recently, and after a pretty successful HN launch, I've been trying different ways of marketing. What I learned, and this may be obvious to many, is that the boring path of getting users by gamifying S…
I'd just spend a few hundred dollars on a adwords campaign.
You know which keywords actually converts to paid users and then you can invest in your seo campaign.
If you just do seo you have no clue what keywords convert (unless all seo traffic is from 1 keyword alone)
A strategy I've been thinking of for my startup (10-20 WAU currently ) is going through old HN discussions that are relevant to my product, finding people who I think would be interested in it based on their comments, and emailing them with a quote from their comment and an explanation of why I think they specifically would be interested. (and then ask them to try it out & give feedback). I thought of this since I wa…