
How our SaaS startup got 1000+ signups in just 7 days, without getting Crunched. - alexmturnbull
http://blog.groovehq.com/post/8471578393/how-our-saas-startup-got-1000-private-beta-signups-in
======
Sukotto
Since the design and consistent integration of design components throughout
the app,site,etc was so important. I hope future posts will include
screenshots and some examples.

Also, I admire the way you guys use twitter and other social media to leverage
your userbase. Indirectly causing your users to vote up you HN story for
example. sort of win-win in that you get more exposure (and maybe more
signups); I learn about an interesting new company; and your users feel like
they're helping you out. (With the ongoing cascade that now they are more
likely to do you favors, they feel more like a distinct community, etc)

------
hopeless
I see no _evidence_ that those 1000 signups can be attributed to your pretty
design. In fact, I dare say you held the belief that design was important long
before the product release, which is why you invested your time in it. Perhaps
it was the particular domain or the viral marketing.

Conclusions without evidence is just conjecture and supposition.

------
rkalla
Loved the post, but as a programming single-founder with next to no design
sense (I would design something like HN) this article makes my checkbook cry
blood.

I suppose it makes sense that your design suggests to people if they should
invest time in your idea because _you_ invested time into it.

Seeing it in writing helps drive the point home.

Also, big congrats to the Grove team, the site and product really do look
beautiful.

~~~
patio11
We are in an age where even ramen-lovin' back-end programmers with no design
talent (like myself) have no excuse for ugly web designs.

Thomas and I chat about this periodically. For about $15, an hour of browsing
ThemeForest, and half a morning with 960.gs and Compass/Sass/whathaveyou, you
can make any throwaway app look like it had someone with actual design talent
touch it.

[http://themeforest.net/item/simplpan-admin-panel-
template/fu...](http://themeforest.net/item/simplpan-admin-panel-
template/full_screen_preview/299692)

That's one I just happened to grab out of a search for "admin". Does it look
like something that got Jediguruninja handling from a team of bespoke design
consultants? No, but it sure craters the approach to that bridge, for three to
four orders of magnitude cheaper.

~~~
americandesi333
Patio11- Design is not just about pretty colors and interface... its more
about understanding the audience and their interaction before delving into
creating the best user experience. Therefore, what you suggest could be a
temporary quick fix that will not give you the results for a sustaining
business.

You can never expect a kickass programmer to also have the best design chops.
They require different forms of thinking. So stop giving false advise to
programmers on enlisting design skills and instead partner with the best
designers!

~~~
hundredwatt
Don't think of the $15 theme as permanently defining the look and feel of your
site. It needs to be just good enough when you're starting to look like you
have some legitimacy. If you're startup is going to be generating any amount
of significant revenue for you, after some amount of time, you'll be able to
go back and revisit the design.

If you're a programer and not a designer, just think of your design as another
optimization point.

Whenever I worry about the design/branding of my current startup, I visit the
historical timeline of amazon's logo as a reminder that we'll be able to make
it better eventually, but there's more important things to work on now:
[http://www.kokogiak.com/gedankengang/2004/07/amazoncom-
logo-...](http://www.kokogiak.com/gedankengang/2004/07/amazoncom-logo-
timeline.html)

~~~
americandesi333
Thanks for sharing the Amazon logo timeline. I have never seen that before and
am surprised to see how much it has evolved...

------
sawyer
Just for what it's worth; the first thing I noticed when I saw your logo was
how much it resembles a breast (including nipple!)

Also, you should have a link to your "marketing site" somewhere near the top
of the right column of your blog.

~~~
alexmturnbull
good call on the link to the marketing site :) Making an enhancement here now!

------
dmbass
Design is the most important part of your product if you are not creating a
new market because that's the only way you can differentiate your product.
Everybody is going to have the same features and what you are really selling
is your design.

When you launch a new product into a new market, the features (i.e. what it
actually does) end up being slightly more important than the design. The
design is obviously still important, but probably not the most important part
of your product.

P.s. I really like the retro-beach lifeguard metaphor for customer service.

~~~
thomasknoll
And, by 'design' I assume you mean the entire user experience, not just the
pixels?

------
marcamillion
Congrats on semi-launching.

1000+ signups in just 7 days is awesome.

Out of curiosity, what's your conversion rate to paying users?

I doubt you are gonna give out that number, but it would be very interesting
to see :)

------
corry
"The viral sign up form probably quadrupled our signups through sharing the
links on Twitter and Facebook."

Does 'viral sign up form' = buttons to share it on Twitter and Facebook? Or
did you guys do some form of 'refer 2 friends to get higher in the beta
queue'?

Nice write-up, thanks for sharing!

~~~
JonLim
From the looks of it, it's buttons to share it on Twitter and Facebook, and if
you refer 3 you can get it sooner, I believe.

~~~
boundlessdreamz
They have a unique URL you can share via email, facebook etc. If you refer 3
friends, you move up the queue.

I have always been skeptical about such a tactic for B2B apps. They say it
worked for them but it seems they are just looking at signups. I'm wondering
if they are real users or just people pestered by others to signup so that
they can move up in queue.

------
slfacini
For what it's worth, I have been using Groove and have been loving it. I
briefly looked into other options and the decision to go with Groove ended up
being a no brainer - it's beautiful, it's made for people who want to hit the
ground running (no learning curve) and most importantly, Alex is a fantastic
guy. I don't know him personally...so I'm not just vouching for a friend, but
he is extremely professional and ALWAYS receptive to all of the crazy feedback
that I throw his way. As a 'customer', I can't think of a time that I've ever
felt this special and appreciated. Great job guys!

------
TWSS
I love the idea of winning on design - I'm a UX designer, after all - but I
question the conclusion that design is how they got all those signups. They
may not have been written up in TC, but they were written up in TNW. Did they
get that coverage because of the UX, or did they get it because they are in a
hot market?

Don't get me wrong - from what I've seen, Groove looks beautiful and well-
thought-out from the user's perspective. But a beautiful and intuitive user
interface won't get covered by anyone if it's in a market that no one's
interested in.

Keep killing it, guys!

~~~
dreamdu5t
My thoughts exactly. It's easy for them to say it's about the design after the
fact.

I'm much more inclined to think it has to do with their market, connections,
and blog coverage.

Also, the design suffers from a lack of whitespace (feels crowded) and overuse
of color. The landing page is way too loud, I have a hard time getting through
it.

------
hxf148
Really appreciate your insight on how you built your marketing. I have been
looking at many different ways to market a product online
(<http://infostri.pe> with little or no money.. or as you say being Crunched.
It's a tough road but there is lots to learn and way to get ahead. I should do
my own blog post on what we have done at Infostripe. Thanks again.

------
cHalgan
I'm not sure. As potential user of this product, I really don't care about
design. Even usability can be a little off. What I need is: good support,
reliability, speed, flexibility/good integration with other things I use.

Somebody mentioned Apple. Is anybody buying Apple XServer disk arrays?

------
brackin
Congrats, the startup i'm working on <http://getdealy.com/creative> got to
1000 in a few days as well, but this was mostly by Forrst Ads and telling
users we had on a couple of other design lists about the deal.

------
massarog
Just signed up for their beta and had a nice chat with what I think is one of
the founders. I've used snapengage and olark in the past, have had small
gripes with both of them so I'm very interested in trying Groove out. Nice
work guys!

~~~
nbashaw
I work at Olark - just out of curiosity, what could we do better?

~~~
kristofferR
It sucks that the "Powered by Olark" text is there even for paid accounts/that
it is so big and it sucks even more that it can't be translated to other
languages. English text on non-English websites looks incredible non-
professional, so much so that even though I love all the other aspects of
Olark I've considered switching.

From my Norwegian customer's perspective it looks like a free script. A
Norwegian company, Idium, is actually successfully charging 3500 USD for a
live chat solution inferior to Olark, but since it's in Norwegian they're able
to do it.

------
bwooceli
Hi Groove Team, first off, congrats! Excellence in execution to the point that
I only have 1 piece of very minor feedback: Your helpful chat window, even
minimized, covers up your company info in the footer. Just the footer.

~~~
magicofpi
Oh, one more thing in the footer - the Privacy Policy and Terms of Service
links don't go anywhere. But it looks great otherwise!

------
rishi
The site does look nice and congrats on launching!

The real test will be how many of those signups turn into paying customers.

------
fabiandesimone
Congratulations Alex! I've been waiting for something like this for too long
:)

------
rokhayakebe
Very nice website indeed.

------
zachallia
i hope microsoft doesn't get fussy about your name

~~~
gsiener
My initial expectation was that Microsoft had relaunched groove as a saas app.

------
petegrif
The site looks great - congrats.

------
jsavimbi
Very sneeky:
[http://groovehq.com/images/marketing/features/EasilySubmitTi...](http://groovehq.com/images/marketing/features/EasilySubmitTickets.png)

