

Startup Tip: How I grew Mint's waiting list to 20,000+ - crxnamja
http://okdork.com/2008/06/03/startup-tips-how-i-grew-a-waiting-list-of-20000-at-mintcom-part-i/

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webwright
Really really good idea to attack something like this as early as possible...

In the spirit of failing early, this is a great way to figure out where people
really what what you think they do. If you can't get a few thousand email
addresses, you quite likely have a bad idea or haven't figured out how to talk
about it yet.

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Elepsis
The phone numbers are a particularly interesting idea, but how did you
intend/did you get in touch with all the people after launch? Did you and a
few others manually sit around and call 20,000 people?

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crxnamja
Every person who uses your service is important, if you can call them
personally, great. if you have to email so you can have some hours to sleep
then do that. i didn't call but suggested that would be a fun idea to try.

after launch vip emails were sent and then emails were sent to different
buckets of people.

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jamescoops
love noah's stuff wish he blogged a bit more - classic thing he does is email
anyone that comments on his blog

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crxnamja
and on news.yc;) thanks J!

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crxnamja
in case anyone was curious i started doing this and more 9 months before the
techcrunch40 competition. i would say 4 months is a good headway to get this
going. i think

a) some sites dont need outreach or trust to be built since their initial
users could theoretically spread the product

b)you want to build the relationships and things earlier than you need them.

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timr
I don't see anything on the list about winning the TechCrunch 40. That's a
good step to add.

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alaskamiller
To be fair, Noah left Mint around that time period. He did great work at
getting Mint noticed before all that.

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timr
Yeah, I'm being cheeky. ;-)

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dbreunig
I like #2.

Solve a problem and find the people to whom that solution is most valuable.
Start there, cater to them, make them passionate, and voila: there's your
base!

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crxnamja
thanks alaska. hugs! i have part 2 about other things that worked well!

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packetloss
Great article! Some really good tips in there

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plusbryan
is 20K really that big? what's the average pre-launch beta list I wonder?

