
Ask HN: What do you wish you'd done sooner? - gnicholas
Startup life often feels like fumbling around in the dark, and many strategies&#x2F;ideas that end up being fruitful don&#x27;t seem the most promising before you try them.<p>What have you done that ended up being much more successful than you&#x27;d expected?
======
gnicholas
OP here. The reason I posted this ask is because I recently made a small tweak
on our website that has generated significantly more signups (without adding
any annoyance — I just changed some existing copy), and which is getting us
more useful information for identifying and closing institutional customers.

We offer B2C tools, which we sell to individuals and also to institutions
(mostly higher ed and K-12, but some corporate as well). We've had a beta
tester signup button for a long time, and we'd get a couple signups every day
or two. We gathered information like what platforms they were interested in
using our tech on, and we would notify folks when we had a new tool to test
out.

Recently, I changed the button [1] to be aimed just at university students.
When universities purchase our tools, they are made available to all students
at the institution. But selling to universities (and elsewhere) is often a
chicken-and-egg problem. We have to convince the institution that a sufficient
number of students would use our tools, if they purchased them. In the past,
we've tried to do an extended free trial for students, but universities just
free-rode on this and told students to go get the free trial.

This new web form has attracted more signups (2x-3x) while simultaneously
gathering much more useful information. We ask for the institution and degree
type, which allows us to then go to these institutions and tell them that
we're getting requests from students. That creates a very different dynamic
than simply cold-calling and saying "hi, we're a startup and we think your
students would use our tools." We also ask the students how our tools would
help them (we have a 2-week free trial, so many signups come from students who
have used them already), and we can then reference these testimonials
(anonymously, of course) in our discussions with universities.

I've been really surprised how impactful this small change has been. Because
we're asking for more detailed information, and a non-anonymous email address
(their university email), I expected we'd get fewer signups. I wish I'd done
this sooner!

1: [https://www.beelinereader.com](https://www.beelinereader.com)

