

Ask HN: How to find a user acquisition person - burgalon

I am an engineer who has built a full working beta of a new startup in the e-commerce domain. The service still hasn&#x27;t launched and has almost zero traffic.<p>In the past I&#x27;ve made few projects that have failed with traction.
This time I&#x27;m hoping to improve: I received very positive feedbacks and from the few beta testers that used the service there&#x27;s even tiny revenue which is very encouraging. However the fact that this is still almost with zero traffic make it hard to attract people to join me, and also means that probably most of the work will be grunt work, with no compensation.<p>I&#x27;m hoping to find a person who would become a co-founder and invested as myself in the project and would help grow the traction and be invested in the idea as myself.<p>The question: 
For engineers, it seems easier to find people who are interested in the same domain as you are thanks to services like GitHub or StackOverflow, however I am not sure where I could find someone who would be interested in the same domain and would like to partner.<p>Are there any quality social networks (Angel List?!) where I could look for people?<p>Am I doing a mistake for looking for a user acquisition person as this stage? Should I do the work myself and get help with a paid intern?
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deepak56
Even with a specialized social network (like cofounderslab.com) - I would say
finding a co-founder is extremely tough and needs equal dollops of luck & hard
work. The worse part is that if you do not find the right person, not only
will you not make any progress but will also be wasting your own
time/motivation/resources.

So yes, I would say do not look at a co-founder as a user acquisition person
at this stage (especially if you have zero traffic). Learn the basics of
marketing & conversion - they are not tough at all. Take your startup to a
position where potential co-founders would atleast be interested in investing
their time. Or combine this with a paid intern as you mentioned.

I do work with startups a bit, so if you want to brainstorm this with someone
- feel free to send me an email. deepak at withstartups dot com

Good Luck!

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burgalon
Thanks. What would be a good resource to start learning marketing and
conversion?

