

Ask YC: How do you get the word out about your product? - abstractwater

Even great products like the Macintosh had an evangelizing effort behind it, and from talking to people at Startup School it seems like the "TechCrunch" effect just gives you a peak that dies out quickly, with low conversion rate.<p>Does a compelling product just do the magic by itself, or do you need a marketing plan?  What strategies do you have to "bring the good news"?
======
axod
I'd say this is a good recipe (Not speaking from a lot of experience, but the
theory seems sound to me :/ ):

1\. Make it so good people want to tell others about it. It can't be an "hmm,
yeah I guess that might be useful later. I'll bookmark it". It has to be a
"Woahhhhh I've been looking for this exact thing for years. So have my friends
I bet. I need to use this now, and tell my friends what I found". (A hard ask,
but it's nice to aim for that 'wow' factor).

2\. Make the base product free, and politely refuse donations. Ask people to
simply tell their friends about it. I think people kinda feel guilty about
having a cool product for free, so they become evangelists for it, and help
you sell it.

Having said that, it's good to get something to start off. Look at
websites/domains that are related, and have been neglected... Send emails,
make an offer, buy domain, get traffic. It's not a sure fire thing - some
people still believe domain names to be worth millions whatever they are. But
you can pick up some real gems. More likely to be sustainable traffic unlike
tc/reddit/etc mentions.

~~~
shiranaihito
> "Woahhhhh I've been looking for this exact thing for years. So have my
> friends I bet. I need to use this now, and tell my friends what I found"

\- That sounds more like Facebook!

Are you sure that the "hmm, that might be useful" -reaction is not good
enough?

~~~
axod
Just speaking from my own experience. If I say to myself "Yeah that might be
useful", I bookmark it, and probably never get around to looking at it again.

------
pg
Make it so good that people tell their friends about it.

------
optimal
I'm sure there are people who can shout louder than everybody else, but this
may be one of those cases where the best way to achieve something, is to do
something else first. [I hate stuff like that. ;)]

If you want to date a girl, you could just approach one after another until
one finally says yes (e.g., "My name is George. I'm unemployed and I live with
my parents."). Or you could improve yourself by learning how to cook or play
music, getting in shape, etc., so you have something to actually bring to a
relationship. At that point you'll either be turning them away, or you'll have
a life and won't care (which can also be an attractor).

Same approach in the technical world. Do you have a blog? Or do you
participate in open source projects, or attend conferences, or anything else
to demonstrate how you bring value to others?

Another common path is consulting, which basically accomplishes the same
thing. Prove your worth to others, and your goal of introducing a new product
becomes much easier.

I think sometimes we may care so much about the end product that we have
trouble switching from the techie role to the business role. But you have to
save some of that energy for marketing, and it may be better to take a more
dispassionate view of the finished product (or risk never releasing anything).

------
geuis
Forget about marketing for a second. Is your product compelling? The first
thing I always look for when developing something new is whether or not it
gives me an "ohhh" response once I see the initial concept in action. To be
specific, as you are working on your project have you had the moment where it
does something unique and you suddenly see that your idea has real potential?
Or conversely, have you spent a lot of time working on your idea but you
haven't had that moment of realization? If so, then unfortunately your project
might be dead on arrival.

I am working on something right now that started as an idea that popped into
my head. I took 6 hours writing the core part of the app, then let it run for
a couple days. As I started using it myself, I had that "Ohh!" experience. To
me, that's what tells me this can be a very compelling experience and why I'm
pursuing further with it.

So if your product is compelling, then you've already gone 80% of the way
there. The last 20% is the hard part. Find the audiences that will use what
you're building. Demonstrate it for them. Free access, full-on support to your
initial base of users, etc. Devote yourself to answering people's questions.
You will find that word of mouth happens very easily when people are excited
about what you're doing.

When you have introduced it to your core audience, which will be very small to
begin with, then look around at media outlets. These days media outlets range
from popular forums about the niche you are filling, to blogs and related
mass-media publications. Getting on Techcrunch is cool. Its a good way to get
some exposure. Hacker News itself is becoming a good place to launch, because
the community is still very small and much more devoted to trying new things.
I used to get hit occasionally by Slashdot and Digg, and that traffic was good
for big spikes, but I would only see about 1-2 percent overall traffic boosts
after that overally. However, that was an extra 2 percent I didn't have
before.

Now, once you are established and have a small but active user base then you
might consider bigger venues for advertising. Buying ads on popular sites like
Digg and Techcrunch can help. Its very targeted, which is what you want. If
you want some Google juice, oddly enough doing press releases can help. I
started a company in the beginning of 2007 and we were paying about $150-$200
for press releases a few times a month. We didn't see huge amounts of direct
web traffic, but it was really good for getting the word out. People in the
financial industries (who pay more attention to press releases than the rest
of us) were talking about us and daily I was seeing our name being talked
about in the niche circles we were targeting. The co-founder was invited to
interview on a few radio shows, which helped after that. (Sadly the company is
defunct now. That's how startups go. However that was not because of the
advertising and word of mouth.) Don't spend a ton of money on press releases.
If your target audience is general web users, then releasing a press release
4x a month will do bollux for you. If you're targeting businesses, then press
releases can be more helpful. But still be careful.

The last thing that I can suggest, is remember your users are "customers" and
NOT "consumers". You can always tell a marketing shill versus a true
entrepreneur by how they refer to people. Everyone forgets that before the
20th century, consumption meant you had tuberculosis. Then that term got
morphed to refer to "the dirty poor masses that buy the rotten horse meat we
sell them as hot dogs." I am a customer, a user, not a consumer. Remember that
if you treat your potential audience with respect, _your_ users, then they
will respect your product and that goes much further than any dollar spent on
marketing.

~~~
cmm324
I agree 100%. We recently validated that there is a need for our product and
it is an amazing thing. So much so, that one of our best clients wants to
start promoting us to collect a commision on every new signup once we launch.

Its amazing that if you put yourself in the right place, or talk to the right
people about your valuable product, then its like the virus from "28 days
later", it spreads quick.

Chris Co-Founder, Property Stampede LLC

------
Jesin
The purpose of advertising is to get people look at your product. The product
itself is what determines who sticks around as a user and who wanders off to
look at something else. I don't seem to have any advice beyond that.

------
shafqat
Make sure you have a great blog that exudes passion and excitement about your
product. Thats a start. Also, treat every user like how you would treat your
mother.

------
iamelgringo
As Marc Andreessen said, make it so good that people can't ignore you.

~~~
mhartl
I was surprised he said that. People can always ignore you. Marc himself
emphasizes that the greatest product in the world can still lose if the market
isn't good.

Some might reply, "How many great products can you name that people ignored?"
I can name very few, but there's massive selection bias at work; the great
products that people ignore are _ipso facto_ ones that most people haven't
heard of.

------
redorb
be as natural as possible.

Most natural (word of mouth) Least natural (spam)

most success is probably somewhere in between

