

Ask HN: How should I attract people towards my launch page - Omnipresent

Launch Page: http://thecitybee.com<p>Me and couple other friends are working on a venture that fixes problems experienced in Daily deal websites by customers and the merchants.<p>We do this by:
1. Letting the customer simply login and download the deal, without paying for it. They simply pay for the deal directly to the merchant when they avail the deal
2. Letting the merchant be in the driving seat by not waiting on the website to provide a check when the deal runs out and by not taking a huge cut from every deal<p>We've done some market research on the topic and feel that there might be a market for this kind of a product from both Merchants and Customers point of view. Merchants not willing to try existing deal sites because of huge share from every transaction and depending on the site to provide them a check and Customers have nothing to lose by simply getting the deal and only paying for it when they avail it.<p>While we are 3ish weeks away from launching the site we decided to create a launch page to help spread the word, however, we are not sure as to what more should we be doing to make the page go "viral".  We've provided enough information to entice the targeted audience into putting their email address.<p>Should we be looking at something like google adwords?
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patio11
_Should we be looking at something like google adwords?_

You'd be competing against savvier people with hundreds of millions of dollars
to spend and a much better monetization strategy. This does not historically
suggest winning auctions.

I wouldn't describe yourself as fixing a problem experienced in daily deals
websites, since neither typical merchants nor typical customers have a problem
with daily deals websites. Merchants have a problem called "not enough
customers", and customers have a problem "not enough money to buy what they
want to buy" or "too much money, not enough amusing things to spend it on."

Talk about how you address _those_ problems. Ideally, right to the customer.
Find a message which resonates, then put _that_ on the website.

Anecdotally, your problems are probably going to be a chicken & egg scenario
with no good deal inventory to start with, so if you had to overwork one side
or the other, I'd give excessive effort to getting the merchants on board in
your target city. (Almost every local site starts somewhere. This is probably
a good idea. Steal it.)

~~~
polyfractal
I disagree (slightly).

Merchants have two complaints with daily deal sites (let's be honest, we are
talking about Groupon for the majority):

-Groupon takes a huge cut, 50%

-Groupon customers are typically drive-by customers. Most merchants complain that they get few or no returning customers from a Groupon deal

Many merchants have been burned by Groupon and have publicly stated they won't
be doing it again.

~~~
Kanundrum17
Hi Polyfractal.

One of the cofounders of this site and this is exactly our thought process of
today's Groups sites. For these 2 reasons if the merchants don't offer deals
because they get burned from the huge cut, they won't have a reason to come
back with other deals. Consumers won't have a reason to come back with out a
deal (Unless they like the place that much).

------
shawndrost
> We've provided enough information to entice the targeted audience into
> putting their email address.

It's probably not going to work like that. Customers won't sign up until you
have deals. Merchants won't come to you until you have customers. You'll have
to start by hustling together some good launch deals, and your pitch will
probably need to include the line "we'll buy you traffic if you put a deal on
our site". Until you launch (with real, awesome deals) your launch page is
only there to avoid the total legitimacy fail of a potential merchant typing
in your url and getting... nothing at all. Don't bother with adwords.

Hope that helps!

~~~
Omnipresent
Thats a great idea. thanks. After having the launch page up for about two days
I tend to agree with you. I think we were targeting this like a normal product
launch so we had a launch page but what really matters here is hustling the
initial merchants.

Also, since users will be able to just get the deal w/o paying, we're adding a
'tipping point' feature on initial deals. Meaning users will be able to "get"
their deal but they'll only be able to see/print it once they influence 2 or 3
other people from a special link.

