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Ask HN: What'd you do to get your first 100 users?

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Re: Ask HN: What'd you do to get your first 100 users?

#81

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Oh, this is cool. There are lots of things like your app out there but this is the best implementation I've seen so far. Great work!

Thanks very much! It's still a big novelty and great pleasure for me to hear positive feedback. I really appreciate it.

Of course. I hope that it remains a novelty and pleasure for a very long time :)

Re: Ask HN: What'd you do to get your first 100 users?

#82

I haven't done any promotion for http://asoftmurmur.com besides posting to reddit and HN, and it now has 400-500 regular daily users. It depends entirely on what type of product or service you're offering. Another key thing is to understand the community. There is radical cultural diversity between subreddits which manifests in very different reactions to self-promotion. It's essential to engage appropriately and res…

This is fantastic. I am in love, I feel like I'm beside the ocean while I'm working. Thanks for this. Instantly bookmarked.

Re: Ask HN: What'd you do to get your first 100 users?

#83

I got my first 50,000 users in a few days by posting to reddit. And literally doing nothing else. If you're trying this hard to market then you're probably making a bad product.

Could you let us know about your product?

Sorry I can't, i'd be revealing my identity.

Re: Ask HN: What'd you do to get your first 100 users?

#84

I've grown https://www.uncover.com (a simple tool to give employees perks and rewards) in various different ways. A lot of it began with telling my network of friends who run startups. Getting them signed up. Then getting them to tell their friends how much they liked it. Once that source was depleted, I began to do a lot of content marketing. I started writing for a lot of different blogs, websites, etc. That helped…

I'm not in your target audience, but I found your site originally on a Show HN and have seen it be recommended to others on various places ever since so you seem to be doing something right! :)

Re: Ask HN: What'd you do to get your first 100 users?

#85
Striking up conversations in targeted areas works well for Blonk [0].

We're targeting software engineers & smaller startups looking to hire in the bay area. Find an icebreaker and when they naturally ask what you do, have your elevator pitch ready. If they're interested they'll ask you for url info or start downloading it on the spot. If not, no worries.

We often work at coffee shops in that area. When someone starts talking, we're happy to chat. Typically when they need to plug in a laptop or they ask you to watch their stuff. Attending meetups that your target audience goes to can be very worthwhile.

[0] http://blonk.co is an job finding app that connects job seekers to co-founders or their potential dept. leader in large companies, skipping the recruiters entirely.

Re: Ask HN: What'd you do to get your first 100 users?

#87

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Oh man, I love this. I've been using it since you've posted to HN. For the life of me, though, I haven't been able to remember the name the last couple time's I've wanted it (and my bookmarks are horrendously disorganized at the moment), and googling different iterations of "white noise generator sliders people birds rain" didn't yield success. I need to stash this away somewhere I won't lose it...

Hey, thanks! I have actually wondered about the name thing. It is a little whimsical, and I guess it would be easy to mix up with lots of similar descriptions like "a quiet buzz" or "a gentle burble". From that perspective, it might have been better to choose something more memorable. The site won't rank well in google for descriptive terms because it doesn't contain a lot of text. Even for terms it does contain, it…

Perhaps the reason a large portion of the traffic is direct, social etc. is you're far better optimized in these areas.

Based on your other comments it seems like you really know what you're doing in these spaces. I'm no expert, but based on all the positive feedback, capturing organic search traffic could help you kill it. Show them and they'll stick.

Re: Ask HN: What'd you do to get your first 100 users?

#89
post #77
post #74

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Digital Point is a great lead, thanks! Why do you think Flippa? I imagine people looking to get rid of their property for money are less likely to pay to monitor its analytics? Then again, it could be a good audience for people who own multiple properties.

Exactly, I guess a solid number of Flippa users own multiple websites for profit, so they should be interested in tight control of stats. You may also e.g. post a sell offer for your web app and a) a number of your target clients will see your pitch, b) you may end with a nice exit at an early stage, so only good things may happen! ;)

Hah very crafty. I'll consider it. :) Thanks for the outside-of-the-box suggestion. Btw, I liked your LinkedIn suggestion in the other thread, going to try that too.
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