Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Getting Users Is Hard

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 110 posts

Re: Getting Users Is Hard

#101

Post by withinboredom »

jlgaddis wrote: post #77

> If you want your friends to meet you at the bar, create an "Event". The event has a title of what the event is (e.g. "Going to the bar"). It has a description to get your friends excited (e.g. "$2 margaritas"). It has the address (e.g. "123 SomeBar St."). Lastly it has the time (e.g. "Tonight at 8pm"). As soon as you post it to the feed all of your friends get a notification that you just created a new event. They…

"You mean you're making an app whose entire functionality is just one of Craigslist's many features" -- and many successful businesses came from that. I think this is OK, many people are trying to get off and leave Facebook.

Re: Getting Users Is Hard

#102

Post by ric2b »

The main time waster when trying to organize an event is choosing the date/time, I don't see how this helps.

You'll set up an event, most people will say they can't make it and now you're back to chatting about which time is the most suitable for the group, wasting the same amount of time.

Re: Getting Users Is Hard

#103

Post by shahbaby »

With every app you download

- Another username/password and another potential security vulnerability

- More complexity to your life as you have to familiarize yourself with another app

- More space on your phone

Maybe your app would be an improvement over current solutions but it's not going to be a significant enough of a job to help you get that initial critical mass of users.

Re: Getting Users Is Hard

#104

Post by TudorBirlea »

I've seen this a million times and I have a recipe for it. (note: I'm a behavioural scientist turned growth marketer) So here's the solution - your Early Adopter Profile:

For a single person to adopt any solution, it has to:

//> solve a clear problem - what do you help them to do, in what context and what is the desired outcome

//> the individual has to (1) have the problem badly solved today; (2) actively looking for a solution; and (3) unhappy with existing solutions identified; and (4)interested in alternatives - that's your solution

Where do engineers fail? They imagine that a BETTER solution will attract more users, while the first solution failed to attract any (meaningful numbers). This is understandable, but there is a better way: understand that the reason your Early Adopters adopt you is not because your solution but because they have a frustrating problem that is badly solved. Unless you can convince them that you Empathise with their problem, they will not pay attention to your solution.

This is where you should focus right now. Wanna test my perspective? Imagine I put here an offer for free 1kg diamonds. Valuable? Absolutely! Credible, reasonable, trustable? Naaah. You need to pull your solution's features out of those Early Adopters, by validating what's missing for them in their problem space. Please observe that Adoption has only 20% to do with you and your solution and 80% with how well you understand who is your Early Adopter.

Anyway, drop me a line and I can guide how to start this up.

Re: Getting Users Is Hard

#105

Post by hn_check »

ethanwillis wrote: post #86
hn_check wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their comment addresses the fundamental substance of the submission. It's as if someone started their sunscreen door to door business in January: The fundamental timing is broken.

Except if you started the sunscreen door to door business development in peak selling months you wouldn't have a company built to actually supply the sunscreen.

The submission is about trying to draw in users for a meat-world social application during a pandemic.

In the sunscreen example, someone could absolutely be designing packaging, securing suppliers, building a workforce, etc, during the winter, but if they went to the door to door phase at the same time it would be a completely disastrous exercise. It was the door to door phase that I was comparing to.

Re: Getting Users Is Hard

#106

Post by paulsutter »

Have a candid talk with the 23 people who didn't sign up, and listen carefully. Avoid any persuasion, just listen to why they aren't interested.

Keep following this path, and you'll eventually have an app that people are eager to use.

Re: Getting Users Is Hard

#108

Post by yoyonamite »

ryansam wrote: post #93
armatav wrote: post #90

This is like THE network effect app that just does not get traction in my book, I built one just like it a few years ago. Push a button, get people to hang out with you. Problem is that people meet up using chat, that’s the core thing you have to be better than. Better, faster, simpler or easier than WhatsApp/Messenger/iMessage/SMS/FB Events/Instagram/Snapchat. Those things have extreme network effects and you probab…

Simply I strongly believe I can do it. My friends and I have encountered this problem over 100 times in the past two years and I just think there has to be a better solution than texting or snapchat. This problem bugged my friends and I so much there has to be a market of people who want something better.

I feel like many iterations of coordinating events has been tried as evidenced by different comments discussing previous solutions that have been built by someone else or by themselves.

Why has this idea failed previously? How will your iteration be different?

I'm not naturally a social person but I did go through a phase where I was more social and ended up organizing events. I never thought using texts, whatsapp, etc. to be much of a hassle. I'm also close to a couple of friends that are very social and I've seen them plan and coordinate events. It's never seemed like a hassle and they've never mentioned it as a problem.

Solving your own problem is good advice, but the pitfall is that your own problem may not be one that is shared by many people. I've had to learn this lesson as well. I would run some of my early app ideas by my friends and their response would basically be, "why would I want to do that?" I'm not saying this idea will not work, but definitely talk to the people you're messaging and find out what they think.

Best of luck.

Re: Getting Users Is Hard

#110

Post by dang »

uncrntnty93 wrote: post #89
ethanwillis wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except if you started the sunscreen door to door business development in peak selling months you wouldn't have a company built to actually supply the sunscreen.

Let’s not get lost in a terrible metaphor that has nothing to do with scientific reality What’s wrong with demanding tech addicted randos check their privilege given a scientific reality of both a pandemic and the ease at which these gadgets can influence decisions? Is that not offering alternatives? Oh sure maybe the most cynical, but it’s nonetheless an alternative option. Why is avoiding a blunt conversation so ta…

Could you please stop creating accounts for every few comments you post? We ban accounts that do that. This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

You needn't use your real name, of course, but for HN to be a community, users need some identity for other users to relate to. Otherwise we may as well have no usernames and no community, and that would be a different kind of forum. https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...

Post reply on HN