Would you be our consultnt for the next 5 min? • Hacker News Board

Re: Would you be our consultnt for the next 5 min?

#11

Post by hluska » Fri, Aug 07, 2015, 7:01 PM UTC

erikbrodch wrote: post #7

hluska wrote: post #4

I used to publish a street magazine and our mailing list was one of our primary tools to interact with our subscribers and fans. Hence, I have (sort of) had the problems you are trying to solve. I know you're looking for out of the box thinking, but too many marketers obsess over thinking outside of the box and they forget the basics. In this case, you need to pay way more attention to the 'simple' things. Idea 1 - >…

Thanks a lot for the reply and feedback. There is a lot of work on the product, totally agree. It's a side project and we try to invest as much time as we can... I would like to talk about idea 4. I think the more time goes by the more relevant the problem is. check out this awesome article http://ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2015/6/24/search-discover...

If you actually think that you solve a problem, talking about #4 is getting way ahead of yourself. I've spent way more time trying to figure out your product than any user ever would and, if you asked me to explain it, the best I could come up with is, "someone you have never heard of will send you emails about something."

I understand that there is too much material for me to read and I know that discovery is a problem, but if you're concerned about customer acquisition, you need to prove to me that your solution is better than my solution. Therein lies my point about paying attention to fundamentals.

Sorry to pick on one writer, but one of your mailing lists is advertised as, "a collection of new tech ventures that are worthwhile watching." Another is described as "News from accelerator world." Not only do those contain pretty severe grammatical errors, but they don't exactly make for a compelling call to action. Why would I subscribe to lists curated by people who can't even craft compelling intros? I know that writing intros is hard, but poor intros don't exactly fill me with trust about the quality of the links I will receive!

If this project does what I think it does, you're going to run head on into a chicken or egg problem. Nobody will subscribe unless you have amazing content to send out. But nobody smart enough to consistently send out amazing content will spend time crafting amazing content unless there are users there.

Once again, focus on the absolute basics before you start thinking too far outside of the box. In this case, you need some extremely compelling content on your first page and that content needs to be so good that I can't imagine leaving without signing up.

Re: Would you be our consultnt for the next 5 min?

#12

Post by jseeff » Fri, Aug 07, 2015, 7:23 PM UTC

erikbrodch wrote: post #6

jseeff wrote: post #3

How about an "ask a question" feature.... presumably newsletters will be sent on a topic which the sender is interested in / an expert in and at least partially with the aim of drumming up business.... so e.g. if I send a link about what to do or not do when applying for a job (subtle link - previously posted, I admit - : https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/shoe-in-booted-out-3-tips-you... ) then the customer could link s…

That's a good idea, I like it. It works good in all the AMA...Yes, most of the newsletters are very niched...Thanks for that (:

Sure- good luck with it! If it helps a lot, feel free to thank me with equity hahaha

Re: Would you be our consultnt for the next 5 min?

#13

Post by erikbrodch » Sat, Aug 08, 2015, 7:40 PM UTC

hluska wrote: post #11

erikbrodch wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks a lot for the reply and feedback. There is a lot of work on the product, totally agree. It's a side project and we try to invest as much time as we can... I would like to talk about idea 4. I think the more time goes by the more relevant the problem is. check out this awesome article http://ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2015/6/24/search-discover...

If you actually think that you solve a problem, talking about #4 is getting way ahead of yourself. I've spent way more time trying to figure out your product than any user ever would and, if you asked me to explain it, the best I could come up with is, "someone you have never heard of will send you emails about something." I understand that there is too much material for me to read and I know that discovery is a prob…

hluska thanks for checking out the website, I would like to refer to a couple of your points: 1. You chose two newsletters as examples: A. Accelerator news: the guy that publish this is the managing director of TechStars London, I can promise you that there are not a lot of people who know about accelerators as he does. That's the all point, he gets access to content that someone who is not from the accelerator world wouldn't find. B. Collection of startups: the curator here is one of the most active and smart angel investors in Israel, this guy has a chance to see so many startups years before others learn about them (invest really early). So you see, the intro doesn't really matter here, what maters is the access to the info and both the examples you chose completely proves the value of the service. 2. As for the chicken and egg problem, this is a challenge, but maybe I'll share some numbers with you. We have around 500 curators and 7500 subscriptions to the different newsletters. Here are additional numbers from the past 6 months that gives us good indication that people discover content they wouldn't have found easily otherwise: https://medium.com/@RefreshBoxx/500-curators-5-000-links-6-m... 3. I approached to get feedback here because I'm still in the basics, getting new users is hard, but the main challenge is make the curators to be as active as possible. From discussions with them, we know they want more engagement and that was my question, how can we make subscribers to engage more with the curators. Appreciate your feedback and happy to get more!

Re: Would you be our consultnt for the next 5 min?

#14

Post by erikbrodch » Sat, Aug 08, 2015, 7:41 PM UTC

jseeff wrote: post #12

erikbrodch wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a good idea, I like it. It works good in all the AMA...Yes, most of the newsletters are very niched...Thanks for that (:

Sure- good luck with it! If it helps a lot, feel free to thank me with equity hahaha

haa...let's see what the users think about it (:

Re: Would you be our consultnt for the next 5 min?

#15

Post by erikbrodch » Sat, Aug 08, 2015, 7:43 PM UTC

spinuplabs wrote: post #8

erikbrodch wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the reply! I have talked to my curators and some of them told me that they want more engagement with their subscribers. That's my main question, how can I encourage more engagement....

Focus on behaviors rather than what they say. What does "more engagement" look like? What behaviors denote "more engagement"? Once you talk to 10-20 curators you should have a solid understanding of what "more engagement" means to them. From there brainstorm possible solutions that will effect that. Rank your solutions on a graph with Bold - Not Bold on one axis, and Likely to Solve - Unlikely to Solve on the other.…

Thanks, I will do that!

Re: Would you be our consultnt for the next 5 min?

#16

Post by erikbrodch » Sat, Aug 08, 2015, 7:46 PM UTC

stephengillie wrote: post #10

erikbrodch wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the reply! I have talked to my curators and some of them told me that they want more engagement with their subscribers. That's my main question, how can I encourage more engagement....

Tell a subscriber that the curators want to interact with her or him better, and listen to that subscriber. Repeat this maybe a dozen times. Ask your curators if they had any specific ideas for engagement and see what the subscribers think about that. You've got to be your product's non-technical founder, and coordinate with your users and customers to build what they want.

Thanks! Do you mean that as the subscriber what would make him/her interact with the curator?