

Ask HN: Launched a new site, what do I do now? - sw007

I have launched a new website, a project I have worked on for a few weeks. I find it useful. My girlfriend finds it useful and even my mum understands it.<p>I submitted to HN last week and got some feedback and you guys said it was cool but needed x,y and z doing to it - I have now made those changes.<p>So now for the million dollar question, but also an embarrassingly stupid question, what do I do now? I have a site, it works, it's useful (as far as I can tell) so what should my next steps be?<p>thanks
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lindalee
You have to start creating customer funnels. This could include writing a blog
for your target market, doing a speaking tour for shoppers and getting them to
sign up, just a few examples. Make sure to get creative with it. Last but not
least, I'd refrain from using the word "cool" when describing your product.
You should think about how Ultimate Gift Lists adds value and is more unique
than your competitors or how people shop now. If you're to do this through
your product and vision, that's when people buy.

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Spendermon
You need to think who your target group of users is. Create Personas, describe
them. How old are they? How much do they earn? Where do they live? Married,
kids, divorced, widowed, suicidal etc.?

Once you defined your target group, you need to find the ones who influence
this group (the "influencers"). Find 10 of them and engage them socially.

That means different things. Follow them on social networks and engage them in
meaningful conversation. Cold-email them with your pitch. Ask them out. Write
a guest blog post. Be honest about your intentions.

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JaakkoP
Personally, I'd be OK if someone "refers" me something through an affiliate
link, but I wouldn't be so sure that my friends / everyone else thinks the
same way. Pinterest got away with it, though.

It sounds a little like <http://refer.ly/> and I'd recommend to take a look at
them if you haven't done it already. They have a neat product, although the
name can potentially turn off some people (see above).

And don't get me wrong, I think there's always room in the market if you do
your job extremely well. :)

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ohashi
Is it something people pay for? How much? How much can you acquire new
customers for?

You need to test your business model. It's not really clear what you're doing
so it's hard to try to be concrete or very constructive.

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sw007
So it is a giftlist creator - but done in a neat way (I think). We make money
by using skimlinks and turning links into affiliate links. It's a way of
finding neat gift ideas and also bookmarking gifts on the web and saving them
to a giftlist.

I think if we had users we could make money - from the affiliate links. But it
is not clear to me how I attract users to the site, how I get the site out
there..

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thedangler
How about a link to the site or a link to the other post?

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sw007
Sure sorry, I didn't want to spam HN but here it is -
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4864978> \- the site is called
<http://www.ultimategiftlists.com> and it is a cool way to create a giftlist,
but is now also, in my opinion, a real neat way to find gift ideas for people.

We've acted on a lot of the feedback given to us:

\- An About Page \- More Categories \- A better way of saving the list \- Make
the giftmark more prominent \- A blog (although not yet published) \- Resizing
of images and a general change to the layout.

cheers

