Ask YC: How to get your startup noticed by non-techies

But I've also noticed that non-geeks tend to signup for a lot of junk stuff out of curiosity. Ex: I get mails from a dozen new social networks everyday saying that my friend has signed up and is waiting for me to get on the site (sick).

And forwarded mails(read junk. most are so) are a better examples.

And they won't return anymore if it isn't a good site.

So it should be easy to get people(non-geeks) but if they like it they will surely go on with your site. I teach a lot of old guys around me(includes my father) about how they can use simple tricks to use the internet better. And it goes on spreading among people in their age group and friends circle. And it does so because it isn't boring. If I taught my dad how to get a Merb app running then he would probably be thinking about the next month finances or the flavor for tomorrow morning's coffee.

Non-geeks find out about technical stuff via their geeky friends and relatives. Firefox is the perfect example.

The only counter examples I can think of are things like Facebook. However, even here, there is no harm in going after techies, unless your product is one of the few that they won't like.

I would look at advertising agencies, they do this stuff for a living. Look at how they sell detergent and cars. It's very lowest-common-denominator stuff, but that's what works. Unfortunately the stuff they do tends to be quite expensive, but learn from what they do.

If you don't have money I would suggest reading up on marketing psychology, there are a lot of tricks, and try out different ad platforms on the Internet monitoring your return on investment through funnels, click-throughs, etc. to find out what works.

Create different ads, viral videos, games, silly websites, and whatever else you can think of. Don't be afraid of "punch the monkey" and "you have just won" ads - they work or they wouldn't be there. You don't have to tell us here on HN you made them ;-)

And don't sell on technological merit, nobody besides techies care about that. Sell on emotion.