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The Depressing Day After You Get TechCrunched

viniciusvacanti.com

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Re: The Depressing Day After You Get TechCrunched

#31

Post by r3m6 »

Ignoring TechCrunch (and other high profile blogs) is bad advice.

Right, the traffic you will get from them surprisingly low, but they are a fantastic source of instant social proof - After all, you must be good, otherwise they would not cover you, would they? ... ;)

A TC logo/quote on your home page can improve conversion rates for years to come.

This social proof is especially useful if you are self-funded, and can not show off your "Received X millions from Sequoia/YC/Whatever..." badge of honor.

Re: The Depressing Day After You Get TechCrunched

#32

Post by startupstella »

LOVE this point...definitely have felt this before at feefighters. however, there are benefits to TC other than just getting signups (especially for non technical startups as some have mentioned). you just have to keep in mind that PR has varying goals: 1) Exposure- people will remember you and refer you when they see you in top press 2) One TC doesnt build traffic/signups, but multiple articles over a long period of time will 3) Brand equity grows with media exposure 4) now you get to put the TC logo on your homepage=social proof=higher conversion 5) Links!

we are planning on doing a big pr launch for matchist when this kind of exposure will serve us well (timing is everything with pr)

Re: The Depressing Day After You Get TechCrunched

#33

Post by sw007 »

Great blog. Exactly how I feel. My question is how do I get traffic? I feel quite lost - we got covered by Mashable and other places and like you didn't get an amazing number of signups - a good number but nothing major. Now I am at a bit of a loss as to how to get people to the site - probably a stupid admission but it feels like the million dollar question to me at the moment.

Re: The Depressing Day After You Get TechCrunched

#34

Post by peteforde »

I can appreciate why this would seem like the morning after a rave, but if you stop and consider what really just happened — a whole bunch of other startup founders just drove by slowly on the way to the next post — then you have nothing to feel sad about.

Those 8000+ visitors are presumably not your target demographic, and it's unlikely that you're solving a problem that they have.

I really recommend that you read the 1st CopyHackers book on identifying the motivations of the people most likely to be your paying customers. Many startups fail because they try to shoot for a general market. In reality, you will convert very well if you correctly anticipate the motivations of the top 20% vs trying to be all things to all people.

The reason is that no matter how great your landing page is, you cannot manufacture motivation in your visitors — even a brilliant product will fail if you market it to the wrong people. Everything in your public messaging should reinforce exactly one message:

We solve X problem for Y.

Resist the urge to add more X, and don't be so hard on yourself if you are ignored by Z, because your product is for Y.

Re: The Depressing Day After You Get TechCrunched

#37

Post by ajsharp »

We found very similar results. In our experience (Zaarly) tech press has yielded very little long-term value, especially from a user growth perspective. The retention rate of users from article traffic is very, very low. An article on TC, VentureBeat, Pando, etc yielded us very little beyond your standard insular chatter amongst the tech community.

On the other hand, I think tech press can be useful if the goal is not solely user acquisition. For example, if you're simply trying to raise awareness of your brand and product within the tech community, especially amongst investors, I think tech press has some value. Other than that, YMMV.

Re: The Depressing Day After You Get TechCrunched

#39

Post by ohashi »

leelin wrote: post #25
Negitivefrags wrote: post #22

I absolutely know how this feels. When we announced our game we managed to get articles on a bunch of top tier gaming media. IGN, PC Gamer, G4TV, and a whole host of smaller sites. And here is what it all amounted to: http://i.imgur.com/IqBcy.png Sad isn't it. Each time you get a new article you get a spike, and then a downturn, but each one leaves your baseline higher. Now we get many times the traffic we got in a s…

Each time you get a new article you get a spike, and then a downturn, but each one leaves your baseline higher. Now we get many times the traffic we got in a spike at announcement every day. I've noticed this higher baseline effect and it seems to hold true even though I am 3+ years into my startup. Others have spoken about it too (David Rusenko of Weebly quite recently). I find it fascinating. Why is the baseline hi…

I've seen the effect too and depending on the nature of the site it can go down after a while too. Content sites come to mind, if you don't keep generating new content, the baseline drops.

I think the answer though is a combination of all the little boosts each article gives (seo, returning visitors, links). Even old articles send visitors. As you collect more of them, the baseline increases.

Re: The Depressing Day After You Get TechCrunched

#40

Post by joeblau »

Q. Did you build something users need?

The reason I ask this is because a lot of times, this can be overlooked. I have found myself spending time twiddling with projects that seem cool to me, then when I ask a few friends what they think about it--they are say things like "yeah that's cool, but..."

What comes after the "but" is what you need to listen to. If lots of regular people are raising issues with you're idea, you may want to rethink your idea. The internet is not the field of dreams so just because you build it, it doesn't mean people will come.

Also relying on TechCrunch as your marketing strategy is a poor business decision.

Edit: Also this video from StatupSchool.org by David Rusenko (Founder, Weebly) puts being on TechCrunch, Newsweek and Time into perspective.

http://www.startupschool.org/2012/rusenko/ - Click "Our Story"

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