Ask HN: Hacking traction for Yoink.com (A free marketplace). What would you do?

Hey HN - I'd love to get your thoughts on how we might be able to gain some traction for our new startup, Yoink (http://yoink.com), launched last month in NYC.

The idea behind Yoink is that it's a trusted place to give and get things for free. Kinda like the free section of craigslist but without the creepers, and like Freecycle but without the multitude of daily emails, no-shows and hassle. We want to create a transparent gifting economy, where people can give and get things, whether it's passing on old furniture, lending a hand to a neighbor, or simply baking some muffins to make a stranger's day.

By launching in NYC, our aim is to start small, iterate & develop the product to meet user's needs - but getting traction is (as with most marketplaces) proving an interesting problem.

So whilst there are a number of interesting things we're working on, and a ton of great resources we're referencing to come up with ideas (some listed below) - I thought it could be fun to open it up for a discussion to see if you had any thoughts on how we might go about tackling this problem and kickstarting things - looking forward to hearing your thoughts! :)

P.S. Some great resources on traction include:

http://www.growhack.com/ http://www.startup-marketing.com/ http://andrewchen.co/ http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/ http://blog.adamnash.com/ http://www.quora.com/Growth-Hacking

Hey Cedric! A blog is a fantastic idea, one of the potential downsides is that we're focusing on a pretty tight geographic area - and blogs have a very broad reach. Inbound marketing is definitely something we're keen to develop over time, but with with limited resources, I'm wondering what might have the most impact right now in terms of kickstarting things..

I guess to clarify a little we see two sides of the equation: We want to reach people in NYC with a large volume of things to give away (movers might be a perfect example). We need to a) reach these people at a time when they're in the mindset for passing things onto others, and b) equally have enough people who're keen to pick things up so the transaction's as efficient as possible. Classic chicken-egg :)

If it were me, I would try to figure out which niche is being offered/taken the most and move your entire product towards it. It will be easier for people to identify and remember your site and easier for you to reach out to the organizations in that space. I don't want to be thinking day and night about what to give, but if whenever people think about volunteering OR moving furniture they think of your site, it might gain more traction.

The niche you are trying to fill would probably be appreciated by religious communities, especially parishioners in mainline protestant denominations and "emergent" Christians primarily concerned with social justice and human need. If you create a way for groups to specify a push community (food banks, shelters, non-profits in X niche) that would periodically receive a list of the group's available items, it would automate part of their mission. Religious communities would also be likely to post a link to you on their website and encourage participation internally. Outside of cities, this demographic is older and would likely be those already afraid of Craigslist for security reasons but savvy enough to see the benefit in your system.