

Advice for contacting local merchants? - saliksyed88

Hi guys,
I have a question for you guys. I'm a fairly good hacker/programmer and have built a lot of cool stuff but I am not so proactive at the business end of things -- it's not something fundamentally interesting to me. Recently I've built an app that is sort of like pulse but it's for displaying and browsing products... any store can add their product. I'd like to get businesses to start putting their products on it. I built a landing page but I don't know how to get businesses to start registering --  How do I build the initial userbase? Here is the simple site I put up: http://muonmobile.com/
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BrainScraps
I don't want to be a Debby Downer, I really want to help you out, so please
know this comes from a good place.

Have you talked to any merchants? If you had, they would tell you what would
be required for them to participate. They would say "What is the point of
this?" or "How will this make me money?" And you could talk to them (your
customers) about it instead of polling the Lords of Ether.

And then you would start giving reasons why your app would drive sales, and
they would help you to frame your message to make it compelling for merchants.

It seems that you have stumbled upon the two-sided network chicken-egg
problem.

To conquer your problem, you need a small band of folks on both sides
(consumer and merchant) who are in love with your system and will provide you
with precious feedback,referrals, and case studies. They will make or break
your service, so find someone who really needs you.

I had more, but I hope this gets your train of thought going in the right
directions. Best of luck!

