How to get your first 100k active users • Hacker News Board

Re: How to get your first 100k active users

#51

Post by GuiA » Tue, Dec 12, 2017, 11:35 PM UTC

amitmathew wrote: post #38

"Grow even before you launch" and "Go big or go home" really resonate with me. We were able to sign up a few thousand people to our new product waitlist through two main channels: exhibiting at conferences and answering questions on Quora. In the past, I would have just done a small beta with friends, but I guess I'm getting a little wiser over the years :) Going big from the beginning is really a tough one. I alread…

I worked at a startup where we had a “waiting list” model - a page where you gave us your email and you’d get an invite later.

The CEO thought this was a good way to build up anticipation, and make sure things were fully polished before opening the floodgates.

We got a few waves of attention, which meant we had about 30k emails on the list at some point.

Of course, this large number put more pressure on us to “get things perfect before we launch”, and it was over a year before the CEO decided it was time to let everyone in.

But by the time we did, people had lost interest, and our conversion rate was abysmal. While a bit buggy and unpolished, the product was still very functional a year before, and had we just let people in we’d probably have gotten very valuable feedback a year early.

(I left the company a long time ago, and it is now in zombie mode)

Re: How to get your first 100k active users

#52

Post by beachy » Tue, Dec 12, 2017, 11:40 PM UTC

yeukhon wrote: post #48

Great tips for an aspiring startup founder. I agree completely. In particular the “mobile-only” resonates with me well. I have seen a number of products only provides a homepage to send me to their appstore/google play. In some cases I was trying to see what job openings were available. I was suprised to see no “career” page. Hmm Did they hide that in the webconsole / developer console? Nope! So please do not do that…

Indeed, any startup founders that are not aspirating will fail almost instantly!

Re: How to get your first 100k active users

#53

Post by myf01d » Tue, Dec 12, 2017, 11:44 PM UTC

miradu wrote: post #8

The advice to not only rely on push and native mobile hits home hard - despite it being cool - email, text, and the web still work really well to bring the customers in!

But mobile app stores could be easier way for users to find your product using search, am I wrong?

Re: How to get your first 100k active users

#54

Post by BukhariH » Tue, Dec 12, 2017, 11:44 PM UTC

danielskogly wrote: post #44

jonas21 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In case anyone is wondering (like I was), I think this is the site: https://wishy.gift

That's the one! Any feedback and suggestions are appreciated!

Usually landing pages for early stage products tend to be iffy but you've killed it honestly! I got what your product was in 10 secs.

What would be awesome is a link to a demo wishlist!

Re: How to get your first 100k active users

#55

Post by vineet » Tue, Dec 12, 2017, 11:46 PM UTC

danielskogly wrote: post #23

This evening we got our 171st user for our wishlist-service. When we launched it 1 year ago we tried to get it out on different channels like Reddit and HN without much success, while we _did_ see success in just talking about it to friends and family, and had just over 100 users in January this year. Since then, we've done close to zero marketing, and it's been amazing to see new signups, wishlists and items being c…

Have you thought about a few marketing side projects for your site? For example, maybe (a) showcase public lists with a count of how many people clicks on each item, (b) creating a list for entrepreneurs, parents, teachers, etc, and (c) sharing them on the respective site.

People will hopefully not just find the items interesting, but will also be curious to see what items others are looking at.

And best of all, hopefully a lot of people will find your site this way.

Re: How to get your first 100k active users

#56

Post by annekate » Tue, Dec 12, 2017, 11:58 PM UTC

adventured wrote: post #50

notaboutdave wrote: post #33

Best takeaways from the article (no particular order): - Retool ads as a way to test for and identify demand. - Bait people with truly useful content where they're already looking, and then direct them to your app. - Simple changes in wording or flow of UX can increase shares dramatically. - Get featured in app stores. How? - Integrate with latest device features being pushed - Adhere to vendor design standards - Ema…

> Especially if you aren't a social butterfly. The best way to get those 10 enthusiastic users, without being a social butterfly (in a traditional sense), is to manufacture them through inclusion. For example, find a subreddit that is relevant to what you're doing, and sell a batch of users on being early adopters (a certain type of people love that). Then give those people credit, attention, and make them feel like…

^ This is good advice.

Re: How to get your first 100k active users

#57

Post by warent » Tue, Dec 12, 2017, 11:59 PM UTC

BukhariH wrote: post #54

danielskogly wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the one! Any feedback and suggestions are appreciated!

Usually landing pages for early stage products tend to be iffy but you've killed it honestly! I got what your product was in 10 secs. What would be awesome is a link to a demo wishlist!

Agree with this, your landing page is _so good_ I'm going to use the format to replace my own garbage landing page. Thank you for the inspiration, this is awesome. You're starting a movement!

By the way, congrats on 171 users :)

Re: How to get your first 100k active users

#58

Post by annekate » Wed, Dec 13, 2017, 12:01 AM UTC

fpisfun wrote: post #45

dna_polymerase wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding the part about native apps, would you go as far as even restraining from publishing any app, if native app developers are not available (or not in the budget) in the beginning?

That sounds absurd to me, go hybrid first then go native once it takes off, you can write your app in JavaScript and have an app that runs in all major mobile devices and a website, I'm not sure how can be beat unless money isn't a problem, such as massive initial funding.

Or you can write a native app and get 10-20k installs for free from a feature on the app store. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Re: How to get your first 100k active users

#59

Post by annekate » Wed, Dec 13, 2017, 12:05 AM UTC

40acres wrote: post #46

Very interesting perspective w.r.t going native. Does that mean you would advise to use Swift/Obj-C & Java/Kotlin as opposed to React Native?

If you have the choice, yes. You'll regret React for many reasons but you are so, so much less likely to be featured with a React app, even a great one. Suck it up and learn Swift/Kotlin (not that hard) and if you can get your app featured that's a cool 10-20k installs for free.

Re: How to get your first 100k active users

#60

Post by amitmathew » Wed, Dec 13, 2017, 12:13 AM UTC

GuiA wrote: post #51

amitmathew wrote: post #38

"Grow even before you launch" and "Go big or go home" really resonate with me. We were able to sign up a few thousand people to our new product waitlist through two main channels: exhibiting at conferences and answering questions on Quora. In the past, I would have just done a small beta with friends, but I guess I'm getting a little wiser over the years :) Going big from the beginning is really a tough one. I alread…

I worked at a startup where we had a “waiting list” model - a page where you gave us your email and you’d get an invite later. The CEO thought this was a good way to build up anticipation, and make sure things were fully polished before opening the floodgates. We got a few waves of attention, which meant we had about 30k emails on the list at some point. Of course, this large number put more pressure on us to “get th…

I'm guessing the CEO wasn't a product person? Expecting to launch with a perfect product is just not going to end well. I view the waitlist as a way to get a basic idea to a broad audience and both validate your idea and iterate quickly based on feedback. Waiting too long will just kill what passing interest someone had to enter their email in the first place. We've had the waitlist for a few months and that's even longer than I would like.

I should add that the waitlist strategy isn't always the right one. If you are a new team building a product in an unfamiliar space, it might be better to start with a small group of users. We've been fortunate to have a succesful product in a similar space, so we can take a little bit more of a risk.