Ask HN: How did you find your early adopters?

#1

Post by pwingo » Wed, Mar 13, 2013, 2:19 AM UTC

What outreach resources did you go through and how did you target potential users once you had a prototype?

edit (from comment I posted): Some friends and I had trouble getting leads on who to "sell" our prototype to, and we had the thought that this may be an even more legitimate problem than the one we were previously trying to solve.

Is this a problem that other startups have faced, trying to find specific (with contact information) customers to talk to and become the first users?

Re: Ask HN: How did you find your early adopters?

#2

Post by chewxy » Wed, Mar 13, 2013, 2:36 AM UTC

I tried a Show HN for one of my projects. It's now dead. For my latest, Fork the Cookbook (http://forkthecookbook.com) I actually approached bloggers and talked to them, one by one. It's a tedious task, but I absolutely refuse to buy ads except for quick tests.

Re: Ask HN: How did you find your early adopters?

#3

Post by adidahiya » Wed, Mar 13, 2013, 2:45 AM UTC

You could try submitting to Beta List (http://betali.st/). It's also a good way to keep track of newly released smaller products / startups.

Re: Ask HN: How did you find your early adopters?

#4

Post by hayksaakian » Wed, Mar 13, 2013, 2:46 AM UTC

chewxy wrote: post #2

I tried a Show HN for one of my projects. It's now dead. For my latest, Fork the Cookbook ( http://forkthecookbook.com ) I actually approached bloggers and talked to them, one by one. It's a tedious task, but I absolutely refuse to buy ads except for quick tests.

I'm curious as to why you refuse to buy ads.

Re: Ask HN: How did you find your early adopters?

#5

Post by LeFever » Wed, Mar 13, 2013, 2:51 AM UTC

When we were looking to fill up our private beta for AppThwack early last year we went to reddit, XDA, LinkedIn groups, and other places where we thought our target customers (Test engineers and app developers) would be. We posted non-spammy posts asking for beta testers and did not mention our product's name. We just described the problem we solved, how we were doing it, and asked for volunteers to sign up.

If I was doing it again I'd follow a similar path, but I'd also approach some of the more influential people in our target market and ask them directly for their help and feedback. We've done that with various features since and it's worked out great.

Re: Ask HN: How did you find your early adopters?

#6

Post by jaddison » Wed, Mar 13, 2013, 3:20 AM UTC

LeFever wrote: post #5

When we were looking to fill up our private beta for AppThwack early last year we went to reddit, XDA, LinkedIn groups, and other places where we thought our target customers (Test engineers and app developers) would be. We posted non-spammy posts asking for beta testers and did not mention our product's name. We just described the problem we solved, how we were doing it, and asked for volunteers to sign up. If I was…

How did people sign up if you didn't tell them the product name? Did you not direct them to the product site?

Re: Ask HN: How did you find your early adopters?

#7

Post by MatthewB » Wed, Mar 13, 2013, 3:23 AM UTC

chewxy wrote: post #2

I tried a Show HN for one of my projects. It's now dead. For my latest, Fork the Cookbook ( http://forkthecookbook.com ) I actually approached bloggers and talked to them, one by one. It's a tedious task, but I absolutely refuse to buy ads except for quick tests.

I'm curious as well as to why you don't want to buy ads. It's a great way to quickly get data without wasting your time on "a tedious task."

Re: Ask HN: How did you find your early adopters?

#8

Post by LeFever » Wed, Mar 13, 2013, 3:35 AM UTC

jaddison wrote: post #6

LeFever wrote: post #5

When we were looking to fill up our private beta for AppThwack early last year we went to reddit, XDA, LinkedIn groups, and other places where we thought our target customers (Test engineers and app developers) would be. We posted non-spammy posts asking for beta testers and did not mention our product's name. We just described the problem we solved, how we were doing it, and asked for volunteers to sign up. If I was…

How did people sign up if you didn't tell them the product name? Did you not direct them to the product site?

Haha, good question. We did it via PMs or DMs or whatever the given site had. It also made it a bit more personal since we were using our own accounts.

Re: Ask HN: How did you find your early adopters?

#9

Post by chewxy » Wed, Mar 13, 2013, 3:36 AM UTC

MatthewB wrote: post #7

chewxy wrote: post #2

I tried a Show HN for one of my projects. It's now dead. For my latest, Fork the Cookbook ( http://forkthecookbook.com ) I actually approached bloggers and talked to them, one by one. It's a tedious task, but I absolutely refuse to buy ads except for quick tests.

I'm curious as well as to why you don't want to buy ads. It's a great way to quickly get data without wasting your time on "a tedious task."

It is a great way to get data, which is why I mentioned "except for quick tests".

For actual growth, it's actually a pretty poor channel. A lot of time and energy will need to be spent optimizing ads, LP, CTA, etc. Time spent on funnel optimization can be better spent running tests elsewhere.

I have personally found it to be far easier to pop a few emails and reply over the course of the day. People who are genuinely interested about the product will link to it (take for example this fine lady: http://preppypaleo.blogspot.com.au/2013/03/paleo-banana-brea...). Those are the people we want to look for.

That way we can more effectively run tests and grow users more naturally, as opposed to having a HN-level spike and not have any follow up activity.

The current tests we're running/actively developing for are pro-accounts. So instead of spending time obsessing over ad quality, CTRs, optimizing landing pages, we can spend more time working on writing the software needed to test our assumptions.

Hope that helps

Re: Ask HN: How did you find your early adopters?

#10

Post by chewxy » Wed, Mar 13, 2013, 3:41 AM UTC

LeFever wrote: post #8

jaddison wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did people sign up if you didn't tell them the product name? Did you not direct them to the product site?

Haha, good question. We did it via PMs or DMs or whatever the given site had. It also made it a bit more personal since we were using our own accounts.

This. For my current project, Fork the Cookbook (http://forkthecookbook.com) we found that being personal helps.