

Show HN: We built manual user acquisition as a service - anandkulkarni
https://leadgeni.us

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gsharma
IMO the content on the site does not reflect it to be 'user acquisition as a
service.'

Value Prop - I think the site/service is very generic and might need some
specific niche. A lead for a plumber is very different than a consulting
company or an airplane selling company. The site makes it look like I can
plugin ANY type of B2B business and start getting leads.

Pricing - If I am a local roofer and paying $800 to leadgeni.us I'd pay for a
specific number of leads rather than 20 hours of research. Further, the site
doesn't tell me who will research for the deals. Are these interns, experts in
my field or people who have minimum of 3 years experience in deal finding?

~~~
anandkulkarni
Thanks for that useful comment -- much appreciated!

We might benefit from introducing some specialized vertical pages, and we'll
provide some more color on who's doing the research work.

The part of the process that's masked is research and strategizing around
likely customer sources, which varies significantly per business category.
Users might definitely prefer to pay per lead, but that's much harder for us
to model from a cost perspective – some users might be easy to target, others
might be harder, and some might be impossible to uncover at all.

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startupstella
I just signed up, but I really don't understand what you are doing. Will you
be finding leads and emailing them? Will you just curate lists of potential
leads? Either way- it's an interesting CA channel to try. But I think you
should make that clearer...If it's wasnt for HN i would never pay up front for
a service without seeing any benefit first (esp $800)

~~~
anandkulkarni
Thanks for signing up! We'll see if we can make it clearer on the front page.
It's the former -- we'll be finding potential leads, curating the list, and
emailing them using a variety of formats to see what works the best.

~~~
MortenK
You'll be cold emailing potential leads? In Europe that would not be legal,
you'd have to get email permission through opt-in before sending a mail,
except in very particular circumstances. I would think it's the same in the
US?

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AznHisoka
One thing.. calling yourself "as a service" usually means it's a SAAS, no?
Otherwise, why not call yourself an user acquisition agency? or user
acquisiton consultancy? There's no real product we're paying to use is there?
(not trying to put these guys down, just trying to nitpick on terminology)

~~~
jaredsohn
I think "as a service" just means that your business can pay someone else to
provide a service that you would otherwise do in house. Also, "as a service"
means SAAS if it is software, PAAS if it is a platform, etc.

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ahulak
The tagline for show HN sounds really interesting, but going to your site
makes it very clear that you don't understand how the lead market actually
works. People don't pay for "hours of research", they pay for the contact info
of a person who has demonstrated that they are in market and ready to make a
purchase decision. It's not clear that the leads you provide are in market -
from the sounds of it, you're just creating a list of prospects? That could be
interesting, but prospecting is very easy to outsource and there are already
several companies (data.com, jigsaw, etc) already have a very robust database
of prospects for a lot less than $800 a month. I don't want to rain on your
parade, but I think you need to really deeply evaluate your product/market
fit.

~~~
anandkulkarni
Thanks for the constructive feedback! Many of our clients have tried lead
databases like Data or Jigsaw and haven't found them nearly specific enough,
which is why they come to us. There are a few examples in the blog post that
are well beyond the scope of Data/Jigsaw
([http://blog.mobileworks.com/leadgeni-dot-us-user-
acquisition...](http://blog.mobileworks.com/leadgeni-dot-us-user-acquisition-
as-a-service)) -- researching Github, analyzing payment platforms, finding new
businesses as they emerge, and more. From your comment it sounds like "lead
generation" isn't the way you'd describe these kinds of activities – could you
suggest something more accurate?

Here's a more sophisticated use case: suppose a crowdfunding service is trying
to construct a list of accredited investors in Los Angeles eligible for
solicitation in particular domains of interest via the JOBS act. These lists
don't exist in databases today -- generally the research element is the more
complex part.

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badclient
What does _lead research_ entail? Will they cold call for 40 hours?

~~~
anandkulkarni
Lead research means looking through a known set of public/private data sources
to figure out if a target user is reasonable for a service. Generally it's not
cold calling to get data, although we've done that in a few cases.

I'll give you an example: one client uses LeadGenius to identify each new
small business incorporated in the state of California, and study 6 parameters
about the business to determine if they've chosen a certain kind of service
provider yet, and if they haven't chosen one yet, how to get in touch with
them.

We'll see if we can make this more clear on the page -- thanks!

~~~
t0
Isn't there a difference between _user acquisiton as a service_ and
_prospecting as a service_? Clicking this link, I thought you did the whole
sales process.

~~~
anandkulkarni
That's useful feedback! It depends on whether your users can convert
automatically based on information from an email. It takes some domain
expertise to describe potential users, so we prefer to leave that to clients.
We might step in that direction at some point -- I'd like to see us positioned
somewhere between Adwords and true outsourced sales.

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snoonan
This is very interesting! I had one question -- I couldn't figure out what
types of leads you are capable of generating. Is it primarily for B2B
enterprise leads of can it scale down to $100 digital products? Any verticals
you're specifically targeting?

~~~
anandkulkarni
The main use is definitely for non-enterprise leads, as long as you can figure
out what kind of user you'd like based on a few qualification criteria.

B2B prospects are much easier to obtain than B2C users since the segment is so
broad, but as long as you have a target segment in mind, we can narrow it down
and research them.

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clarky07
Very interesting idea, but lots of red flags here.

1\. This isn't user acquisition. Nothing even close to it. User acquisition
would be getting users. This is at best getting leads that aren't even warm. A
lead is not a user.

2\. Paying by the hour instead of by lead or something else seems bizarre. On
the low end, it is $800 for ~88 hours of "lead research" along with nebulous
"Strategy consultation" and "ROI analysis". Assuming they aren't lying, they
are either losing money or your "Dedicated LeadGenius" is making minimum wage
and they are maybe breaking even after taxes and overhead.

I would love to see a service like this that was simply commission based with
perhaps a monthly fee. Do the full sales process instead of just lead gen as a
test to see if sales will work well for your particular business. Much lower
risk than hiring someone full time. Perhaps the churn on this would be too
high?

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jeromeparadis
I find the service interesting. But, I suppose lead research is done through
outsourcing somewhere cheap because at 800$ per month for 20hrs/week, how can
they make a profit? It amounts to about 10$ an hour.

~~~
fblp
The about link at the bottom links to here
[https://www.mobileworks.com/company/](https://www.mobileworks.com/company/)
which indicates they are involved in a crowdsourcing and would have access to
cheap offshore labour.

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hayksaakian
Lead Gen is a tough industry, good luck

