

How do I get a startup noticed? - silent1mezzo

I was just wondering how people get their startups noticed? I've been tweeting and marketing my startup (currently just a landing page) for the past week and have only had 20 signups. Similar startups (only a landing page) get 500+ signups on the first day.<p>Should I be doing anything specific to get my startup noticed?
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sagacity
Okay - I found the following with a quick dig through our developed website
portfolio:

* <http://www.RecipeAvenue.com>

* <http://www.TheDrinkMaker.com>

* <http://www.USRestaurantGuide.info>

* <http://www.dGroceryStore.com>

I don't know the traffic levels on these sites (we don't track such things
individually for each site) but I guestimate a collective volume of ~ 20-25k
PVs/mo.

If you wish, we can run a (site-wide) promo of your landing page on all of the
above sites for a few weeks. (You don't need to pay anything - at any time -
unless you must ;-)).

Let me know if you're interested.

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silent1mezzo
That'd be awesome. Whats the best way to get in contact with you? You can
email me at adam[ at ]dinnerplanner[ dot ]net

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deafcheese
Maybe try putting more information on your landing page. People would be more
likely to sign up if they had more than 5 words to figure out what your
startup does.

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silent1mezzo
I added more information to the landing page. The issue isn't necessarily with
the # of signups but more to do with traffic. Currently I'm converting 10% of
my visitors to signups. But I'm not getting a lot of traffic.

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arn
Is getting a lot of traffic really a realistic goal with a landing page?

I mean, I'm sure there are exceptions. But this seems like a strange thing to
even care about.

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deafcheese
Why squander an opportunity to get sign ups?

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autalpha
You're seeing this error because you have DEBUG = True in your Django settings
file. Change that to False, and Django will display a standard 404 page.

In other words... DEBUG = False when you're exposing the rest to the world.

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silent1mezzo
Forgot to change this from local development. Thanks.

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ecto
I just asked the same question basically:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2218427>

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silent1mezzo
Awesome, I'll check out those answers.

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pestaa
To get something you've never had, you have to do something you've never done.
Or, nobody ever done, really.

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nudge
What have you made? You'll only get useful advice if we can see what it is.

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silent1mezzo
<http://dinnerplanner.net>

Dinner Planner allows people to plan out their daily meals in an organized and
efficient manner, share recipes with friends and even organize your grocery
list (automatically). We send out daily reminders to people on what they're
cooking for the night.

Tonnes of features are planned including SMS notifications, subscriptions to
weekly menus, generate meal ideas based off what ingredients you currently
have.

I realize there are other apps out there like this one, but to be totally
honest, there aren't many good ones.

~~~
nudge
I'm not sure it's the kind of thing where you can expect a huge number of pre-
launch signups. You're providing a tool, but not one that's solving a burning
business problem, for example. Big pre-launch signups tend to be for sexy
technology platforms, buzz-generating social sites, or useful-looking business
apps. Your site may provide value, but I'm not sure it will provide so much
value that people really want to be told when it launches. That doesn't mean
you shouldn't go ahead with launching it, mind. It could be the kind of thing
people only care about once it's there. I mean, if somebody was opening a
store near my house would I sign up to get an email when it opened? No. I
don't care that much. But would I go in once it opened? Sure, maybe. The two
things aren't related.

[edit] Sorry, to be clear: they _are_ related, but not as closely as you might
expect. No signups does not mean no business, just like many signups does not
mean lots of business.

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ig1
Whats your visitor:signup ratio ?

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silent1mezzo
268 visits - 21 signups

or roughly 8%

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profitbaron
Your splash page is very bland, having looked on <http://dinnerplanner.net>
there isn't much on it other than 20 words.

I recommend that you make your splash page/landing page better by adding more
information, or even a few screenshots etc to hep encourage signups to your
service.

However, this seems more of a marketing issue. You should focus more on your
marketing efforts as well as, how your competitors marketed your product? Also
you should consider contacting publications such as a food blog etc, as this
will also help you acquire more signups.

