

How to Find and Recruit a Killer Advisory Board - earbitscom
http://blog.earbits.com/online_radio/how-to-find-and-recruit-a-killer-advisory-board/

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benologist
Unless your goal is to just be the online radio some subset of HN users listen
to you guys really need a better marketing strategy than churning out blog
posts for HN.

There's a bunch of music sites and blogs, work your contacts and get cuddly
with anyone who can get your startup on or referenced on those sites where
tons of music aficionados can click thru and see earbits the music startup,
not earbits the blog about startups.

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ericflo
What makes you assume that blog posts are all they're doing? Wouldn't it be
better to assume that these blog posts are just a small fraction of their
marketing strategy?

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ericflo
Since people don't typically act irrationally, why not assume that if they're
still doing it, it's because it's working by some metric that they're
measuring?

I guess I just don't understand the default-hostile attitude.

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jamesbritt
_Since people don't typically act irrationally, ..._

No? I see it all the time. Not with everything, but at least a few things,
especially when something is near and dear to the heart.

People often believe the things they really _want_ to be true, and rational
calculation doesn't figure into it.

Not to say that the Earbits wave is or is not based on some measured plan,
just that repetition of behavior is no indication that someone has made a
rational judgement.

In any event, the user 'earbitscom' is clearly interested in one thing:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=earbitscom>

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ericflo
Sorry, I should have specified that I was using the word rational in this way:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_choice_theory> namely, "that an
individual acts as if balancing costs against benefits to arrive at action
that maximizes personal advantage"

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jamesbritt
Right. I'm rejecting that claim. Quite often people do things that clearly do
not fit rational choice theory.

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earbitscom
Okay, let's just stop the speculation. My team is focused on all kinds of
marketing. We were just written up in TheNextWeb, were just interviewed by
Earwolff, were on Eye On Business in Orange County, have closed two very large
marketing partnerships scheduled to launch soon, as well as are launching some
great contests designed to draw eyeballs. We've written 29 blog posts in May,
65-75% of them are album reviews, recaps of the week's new music releases and
information about festivals and concerts. The other 25 are either about
startups, music industry chat, or both.

Has it proven beneficial to us to write about our startup experience and post
to HN? Yes, it has. And based on the number of votes our posts have received,
people find the information valuable. We'll try not to make it so frequent
that it's annoying, but the content is relevant for this forum and it has
driven some great, very feedback-oriented tech people to our website, which is
important for not only early adopter traffic but also getting smart people to
tell us what they think of our product.

In other words, it's not the core of our marketing plan, but it's not an
accident and we'll try not to abuse it. Thanks.

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skmurphy
If you can get introduced it's normally more effective than an e-mail.

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earbitscom
That's absolutely true. Some people don't yet have those connections, just
like we didn't, and I think you can still shoot for those people. It's
different than investors, who almost never take meetings with people they
don't know. The kind of advisor you want to work with should be friendly
enough to respond to someone they have never met, and probably doesn't get the
volume of email that an investor gets. That's been my experience anyway.

~~~
skmurphy
E-mail is easy to send but is not as effective as an introduction for that
reason. You might see if you know someone in common and ask them to introduce
you. Expecting an advisor to be friendly to strangers is a high bar.Ditto if
you are trying to reach prospects or partners.

