

Startups: Don't just collect my email address - ry0ohki
http://jamespanderson.tumblr.com/post/4578587507/startups-dont-just-collect-my-email

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ed209
And once you do contact them, make sure that the first thing in your email is
something like:

"You're getting this email because you signed up to service-foo on 14th Jan
2011

Service-foo is a widget that enables you to do foobar"

I did something similar recently and had a different range of dates when users
signed up. 3 months was way too long, one month was just about ok. I also
added a little "What is service-foo + demo video" section at the end of the
email.

~~~
Jem
And don't forget the "I've changed my mind" unsubscribe link at the bottom,
too.

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acangiano
There is another reason why you should keep your list "warm". If I sign up
today, and you email me for the first time 5 months from now, I might mark
your message as spam because I may have forgotten the name of your startup and
what it's all about.

~~~
eoghan
I think it's likely that if you have to keep your list "warm", you probably
launched your holding page too early.

------
jaymstr
I'm coming in a bit late on this one, but just so everyone knows, at
LaunchRock we're working on tools/best practice guides to make sure that
people are continuously engaging their users.

We're also writing a blog post about this that I'd like to get up today. If
you've got any input that you think is valuable, email me at jameson [at]
launchrock [dot] com or hell, call me: 717-808-4908

Anyway, LaunchRock is best when you're using it to create that initial
feedback loop with interested parties.

~~~
jdp23
looking forward to the post ... seems like a great direction for LaunchRock to
go.

------
pmjordan
We've been doing exactly this for a few weeks, and it's been pretty useful for
figuring out what kind of people are attracted to our product, and what
problem they want to solve with it.

Our simple sign-up form is filled out by a surprising (to us) number[1] of
people who reach our home page, which isn't exactly a pretty sight right now,
and not optimised in the slightest. Most of the traffic is organic search, the
rest is from people looking at my HN profile. We've deliberately kept the
questions in the form to a minimum to avoid overwhelming people. [2]

Once every 1-2 weeks we go through all the responses, group together any
highly similar ones and then send out a "thanks for your interest" email with
2-3 open-ended questions (depending on the answers they gave in the form).
Most people reply to that e-mail, with varying levels of enthusiasm - anything
from 2 sentences to 10+ paragraphs. People are then generally very helpful
when we have any further questions. (some seem to be genuinely surprised that
we email them back at all, or perhaps that the e-mail isn't some dry, generic
newsletter)

Sure, it's not a statistically representative sample, but it helps us figure
out what to focus on. It's also a fantastic motivator to know that real humans
are looking forward to our launch!

[1] I'd give a percentage but for a while we were getting some vastly inflated
hits to the site due to the previous owners of our server's IP address still
having their DNS pointing at it. This caused a lot of worthless traffic, both
direct and search. We've now added a vhost for their domain name to collect
more accurate numbers.

[2] Our audience is quite techy, so these factors probably don't have quite as
negative an effect as they would on Joe Bloggs.

------
MatthewPhillips
Can I add that once you do launch, don't send me any more emails. Nothing
irritates me more than noticing I have a new email on my phone, open it up and
it's some app I tried 3 months ago that stuck me on their newsletter that I
didn't explicitly ask to be on. A lot of apps make this a default setting that
you have to go in and uncheck through 3 layers of settings pages. I mark all
of these newsletters as spam; I don't go back to their app.

------
jgroome
I understand this post is about keeping a mailing list "warm", but I think if
I was getting an email every month just saying "we're still alive" then it
would get old very quickly. I'd probably unsubscribe within two or three
emails. How many such emails would be too many?

Sure, I've opted in to the mailing list and as such it's unreasonable to
expect no emails whatsoever. But if I gave a startup my email address on the
understanding that they'd shoot me a message when they've got something to
show me, does that really mean I'm interested in a monthly internal bulletin
about hiring and progress?

I just think there's a fine line between "keeping interested people informed"
and plain spamming.

~~~
gergles
I think the whole point is that if you need to send more than 2 or 3 e-mails,
you launched your holding page too early and should reconsider even having it
up.

------
kariatx
I think the best solution for this problem is don't collect email addresses
too soon.

I am not of fan of too much time between submitting my email address and
getting a launch email. Like others have pointed out, I totally forget about
the company in question.

However, it also greatly annoys me to sign up for a notification list only to
start receiving progress update emails. I'm never that excited about a
startup. I always unsubscribe from emails like these.

I think progress updates are be better dealt with on Twitter, Facebook, or a
blog - depending on the audience it's intended for. Don't turn what's supposed
to be a one time email into a newsletter.

------
geedee77
I do completely agree with this post but when did a blog post become the place
for a one line piece of advice? What happened to the long, detailed blog post
with loads of useful information - did they die out whilst I wasn't watching?

~~~
delano
Blog post length != blog post quality.

~~~
sudont
Indeed, and I would say it's a good starting point for a discussion on how
startups of all types can better interface with followers and better market
themselves.

Found out a friend's starting a startup, he's gonna get this link.

------
rocktronica
I wonder how many LaunchRock teasers are placeholders for actual apps vs "idea
people" just testing the waters...

~~~
erin_bury
Remember the whole Hipster ordeal? I think sometimes it's a test of how viral
a landing page can be.

~~~
dwynings
For what it's worth, Hipster had a fully functioning site at the time.

------
justinxreese
I'm one of those Launchrock sites (<http://www.selfcompete.com> \- plug :/)!
Although I've only been collecting email addresses for a little over a month,
I'm going to follow up on this advice sometime this week. It's a very
reasonable suggestion and as acangiano suggested, keeping the list warm is
important because I know I've received emails from things I don't remember
signing up for.

------
bdmorgan
We're "launching" our LaunchRock page on Monday - <http://www.onsidekick.com>.

A semi-related question to this that we're struggling is: how much should we
bother incentivizing those who invite the most with cash, an iPad, or even a
contribution to their favorite charity? At the end of the day, this sign-up
isn't really directly for people who are going to purchase our service in the
future. It's really just a way for people to say "hey, I'm curious - let me
know more". We're struggling to determine how much that is really worth.

~~~
ry0ohki
I wouldn't encourage people to take actions with a physical reward as their
motivation.

First, it gets you the wrong type of users, because people completely
uninterested in your service will get others to sign up just because there is
something in it for them (or create fake accounts, bots, etc...). Second, if
you use this approach it's hard to gauge real interest in your service. It
should be interesting enough that people will want to show their friends with
no reward, if it's not I'd solve that problem first.

If you feel you must incent them in some way, maybe a free month of the
service, a "Founders" badge or something else that relates to your service but
is intangible might be a better route.

------
TillE
After you've collected the addresses, what software are you using to send
newsletters and handle unsubscribe requests?

I know there's some mailing list software like Mailman you could probably use
for this purpose, but it's a little overcomplicated. Surely there's some
decent software that exists specifically for this purpose.

~~~
vanni
You can use MailChimp, an email–marketing service.

<http://www.mailchimp.com>

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zipdog
Engaging the early users in a dialog is the best way to keep them motivated.

Don't just email them (though, do that) but given them something to look at
like a rough demo video, or a screen mock-up that helps explain the concept
(and offer an email for feedback), or something they can do to find out more.

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erin_bury
I've definitely received a few e-mails from startups who have launched since I
put my e-mail in on their Launchrock page...but I love his idea to e-mail
people once a month to update on progress and ask for feedback/help.

------
d0m
The image has something scary in it.

