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Ask HN: How to find help marketing an MVP to programmers?

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Re: Ask HN: How to find help marketing an MVP to programmers?

#11

Post by Kanbab »

I have a background in marketing/sales/adwords/social-media-hacking, and im finishing up a 3-month web-dev course. I guess you can say I will be able to speak the language of your target clients (i'll have to read through some objective-c tuts to really know what they struggle with).

What kind of work are you looking to get done specifically? Two things that I would do is: spend about 5 hours a week on Quora tapping iOS developers, spend about 5-10 hours a week on StackOverflow tapping iOS developers. All non-spammy.

Other things to do are: guest-blogging, requesting reviews.

Work requirements would include advanced analytics of incoming links to see how all of the off-site activity is performing.

Re: Ask HN: How to find help marketing an MVP to programmers?

#12

Post by sharemywin »

I'm not sure I would get it out to more users, yet. If your still working out a large backlog of issues you may want to focus on the product. If you have a small but dedicated group of users, you might want to focus on making the product better until that users are refering others to the point its starting to grow on its own. Then, you know your product is ready for hockeystick growth.

Re: Ask HN: How to find help marketing an MVP to programmers?

#13

Post by sigre »

orangethirty wrote: post #5

In plain words, what does the product do for me?

It's an API you use to send push notifications to iOS devices that have your app installed.

More specifically: it (a) makes debugging missing notifications easier, as it often feels like a notification just disappears into the ether, (b) it's priced based on actual usage, and (c) it saves you a ton of time from having to deal with Apple's APNS, which in my experience can get quite hairy.

Based on our split testing and other feedback, one of the next items on our list is to rewrite the about page. Thanks for the feedback!

Re: Ask HN: How to find help marketing an MVP to programmers?

#14

Post by orangethirty »

route3 wrote: post #10
orangethirty wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just bad business advice. You need to market right from the start. Having a dedicated person to do it is actually more productive than the founders themselves doing it.

>> That's just bad business advice. I'm no MBA or startup guru, but I don't often hear "Founders in very early stage/prototype stage should avoid interacting with their users". Early stage interaction is critical to the success of the product. >> Having a dedicated person to do it is actually more productive than the founders themselves doing it If the goal is to get to know their audience needs, and iterate the prod…

I did not say founders should not interact with users. What I said was that if possible, a marketing person should be assigned or brought it as soon as possible. Founders have to realize that they don't have to do everything. Letting others do for them is what helps a business grow.

Re: Ask HN: How to find help marketing an MVP to programmers?

#15

Post by xauronx »

sigre wrote: post #13
orangethirty wrote: post #5

In plain words, what does the product do for me?

It's an API you use to send push notifications to iOS devices that have your app installed. More specifically: it (a) makes debugging missing notifications easier, as it often feels like a notification just disappears into the ether, (b) it's priced based on actual usage, and (c) it saves you a ton of time from having to deal with Apple's APNS, which in my experience can get quite hairy. Based on our split testing an…

You know, your pricing page says the same thing you just did "It's priced based on actual usage". That's not true. It's a flat fee of $25 per month. Priced on usage would be $0.01 per push message or something, so the price scales based on actual usage.

That being said, I want to use this.

Re: Ask HN: How to find help marketing an MVP to programmers?

#16

Post by xauronx »

xauronx wrote: post #15
sigre wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an API you use to send push notifications to iOS devices that have your app installed. More specifically: it (a) makes debugging missing notifications easier, as it often feels like a notification just disappears into the ether, (b) it's priced based on actual usage, and (c) it saves you a ton of time from having to deal with Apple's APNS, which in my experience can get quite hairy. Based on our split testing an…

You know, your pricing page says the same thing you just did "It's priced based on actual usage". That's not true. It's a flat fee of $25 per month. Priced on usage would be $0.01 per push message or something, so the price scales based on actual usage. That being said, I want to use this.

Actually... It does say lower in the page that pricing is $0.02 per notification, but you're to prepay for them. That's kind of conflicting with the "$25 per month" that I saw above that. I assume if I prepay $25 and don't use all of them then it carries to the next month?

Re: Ask HN: How to find help marketing an MVP to programmers?

#17

Post by sigre »

xauronx wrote: post #16
xauronx wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know, your pricing page says the same thing you just did "It's priced based on actual usage". That's not true. It's a flat fee of $25 per month. Priced on usage would be $0.01 per push message or something, so the price scales based on actual usage. That being said, I want to use this.

Actually... It does say lower in the page that pricing is $0.02 per notification, but you're to prepay for them. That's kind of conflicting with the "$25 per month" that I saw above that. I assume if I prepay $25 and don't use all of them then it carries to the next month?

This is great feedback. The $25/m gets you 2500 notifications prepaid, but it's a use-it-or-lose-it kind of thing.

I'll definitely clarify that. Thanks!

Re: Ask HN: How to find help marketing an MVP to programmers?

#18

Post by sigre »

sharemywin wrote: post #12

I'm not sure I would get it out to more users, yet. If your still working out a large backlog of issues you may want to focus on the product. If you have a small but dedicated group of users, you might want to focus on making the product better until that users are refering others to the point its starting to grow on its own. Then, you know your product is ready for hockeystick growth.

Cool, and that's been our overarching strategy.

What I'm concerned about is that, as we work through the backlog of features, we also want to grow the users simultaneously. This will help us avoid a "bias of small numbers", in that our small group of initial users keep us focused most specifically on their needs, potentially taking us away from building features others might find compelling.

Hockeystick growth is for later, when we've achieved product-market fit. For now, I just want slow, linear growth to make sure we're consistently filling our backlog with compelling features that users actually want.

Re: Ask HN: How to find help marketing an MVP to programmers?

#19

Post by sigre »

soneca wrote: post #6

Would be too shocking if I consider this a "How to find a non-technical co-founder" question? Because I think that is just what you need. I don't think a freelance, temporary or part-time marketing person would be a good choice. A real co-founder, responsible for marketing your product would be ideal. Someone that could hack the distribution part of your product. Actually, I don't have any practical tips of how to fi…

That's great advice, and perhaps that's really the answer. Based on what I've been directly observing, most of the "marketing" that I do is pretty mechanical: A/B testing, posting updates to our existing users and soliciting feedback, adwords experimenting, and writing blog posts and other content.

In terms of prioritization, spending my time improving the product and offloading this mechanical work just seems like the right thing to do.

Re: Ask HN: How to find help marketing an MVP to programmers?

#20

Post by goodwink »

ig1 wrote: post #9
vetleen wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't you think you need users to move towards product-market fit?

If you don't have product-market fit it's normally much easier to move the product than it is to move the market.

How do you know if you're in this situation or if you simply haven't been able to get the exposure you need?
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