
How Jason Cohen Built And Sold Smart Bear Software - dshah
http://mixergy.com/jason-cohen-smart-bear/
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vaksel
I posted this on the other site, but I figure I might as well copy paste my
comment(since it took a few minutes to put the data together):

I'm not sure, but I think startups.com is beating answers.onstartups.com

onstartups has an alexa rank of 27.5K, but that's shared with Dharmesh's
actual onstartups blog. startups.com has an alexa rank of 29.5K, and that's
all them.

And yeah I know alexa rank is worthless, but it's a useful indicator when it
comes to comparing 2 sites.

then we have users:

startups.com has 2055 users. answers.onstartups.com has 1687

then we have # of questions, onstartups has 928, startups.com has 3943.

then you have page rank, startups.com has PR of 5, onstartups.com has PR of 0.

and finally you have level of activity: onstartups: 29 questions updated in
the last 24 hours(either asked or answered) startups.com: 29 questions updated
in the last 5 hours

So by every metric onstartups is getting creamed.

I think this is a perfect example of what Jason talked about on the video,
since both Dharmesh and Jason already made their bucks, they don't really care
whether the site sinks or swims. While for startups.com guys, they see it as
their opportunity to make it a big cash cow, so they try to go create content
to make it grow as fast as possible.

With my site(i use the same platform), I'm going for a mix of both. Build up
content to drive traffic, but try to focus on quality, so that the traffic
that does come gets a positive experience and just might register. This is why
every question gets thoroughly researched and answered. Sure it's slower than
spamming the crap out of my site with dumbass fake questions like startups.com
guys...but at least I don't have 1246 unanswered questions on my site.

Well to be completely honest, I do spam my site a little with fake questions.
But that's because as a brand new site, there is really not that much traffic
yet, and I don't want my users who like answering questions to get bored.

~~~
smartbear
However if you were watching closely, as we are, you'd discover that most of
the numbers you site are fake.

For example, they invented "users" who aren't real people. You can tell
because there are 100 users with the same IP address.

Another example: Startups.com has 1247 unanswered questions -- 30%.
Answers.onstartups.com has only 29 -- a mere 3%. Which one of these
communities appears to be REAL?

As a final example, if you look at the actual questions on the two sites,
you'll see for yourself that one seems to be coming from real entrepreneurs
with real issues, and the other doesn't.

Although I don't begrudge you creating fake questions, I'd like to point out
that we didn't have to do that. It's all real.

So in the end, are you really comfortable saying that OnStartups is "getting
creamed?" Is having a high-quality, beloved site worse than having a site with
"stats" and "users" which are completely fake?

If so, you must also think that those spammy websites created for Google Juice
by plagerizing real websites are also "creaming" those real sites, because by
every metric they're winning -- search rank, compete.com, whatever.

At the end of the day, which site do you think will last? Which one will
generate the most profit?

I say "profit" because also keep in mind they bought the "startups.com" domain
for 6 figures. Have to make up that money (plus whatever else they've spent)
before the site is profitable.

~~~
vaksel
oh yeah I know... a while back if you looked back all their top users had the
same gravatar(gravatars are pretty random, but they do assign one per ip)...+
they changed their community bot's name to Dennis Rodman, so that people
woudln't know that the site was dead when the front page had nothing but
"Community" on it.

Hey I gave the 1246 # :P...and yeah I know what you mean, my site has like
5-10 unanswered questions out of the ~1000 I have now.

I think part of that is targetting...they seem to be more mainstream oriented.
So they have your local corner store owner asking questions, while onstartups
is more web tech oriented.

All new communities astro turf...reddit guys submitted stories and posted in
comments between each other for example. You can't launch a community without
doing that. Noone wants to go to an empty restaurant.

Actually the fact that you don't, is a strike against you in my book...it just
shows that you guys just don't care about the site, and are pretty much
letting it sink or swim on it's own. I used your site early on, but then I got
bored because it took a whole day to see 2-3 new questions. Same goes for
asking, I asked a question a while back about launching...and I didn't get a
response for more than 12 hours...in the middle of the day. So you have a site
where there are no questions, and no answers, gives people no reason to stick
around.

Comfortable? no...but what metric would you use that says that you are doing
better? Pretty much the only metric I can see is that you have higher quality
users. Which doesn't really mean much, when it takes 12 hours to answer a
simple question.

Yes it's nice to have a high-quality beloved site...but that doesn't count for
much, when the site appears to be dead.

No those "spammy sites" aren't creaming real sites...for 99.99% of entries,
the real site will always show up first.

At the end of the day? I think both of you will last, but startups.com will
have better metrics(more users, more traffic, more revenue).

Same goes for profit, if startups.com becomes THE place for startups, will
rank high for every startups related question on Google...then even that 6
figure investment won't matter.

I wish all the luck to you guys, but at this rate, you'll be a Web Developer
Forum to their Facebook

~~~
smartbear
I see what you mean about the targeting, and I do agree with you on that. And
I agree with your general argument that their techniques might put them into
the driver's seat generally.

I see what you mean about not getting a response quickly too. That's not a
problem anymore from what I see, but of course you're right about
bootstrapping at the beginning.

However, the response from our users has been that their questions at
startups.com just don't get useful answers, whereas the ones on
answers.onstartups.com get really good, detailed, useful answers.

Again, I think you and we have different definitions of what's "successful."
It sounds like you're still thinking about it in terms of #users, #traffic,
and revenue, but that's NOT OUR GOAL.

Our goal is to create a genuinely wonderful community of entrepreneurs who get
quality answers to questions from real people whom they trust. Those take time
to grow and by definition it means not getting 100k users overnight.

For us, one person who gets one insightful answer to an important question is
better than 100 people with 100 crappy answers.

But that's just us!

~~~
vaksel
I don't see why you can't have both. The thing I found with SE, is that your
users break down into 3 categories.

1\. People who answer questions..these are your biggest fans, who love the
site. These are the guys who you build the community around.

2\. People who come to the site through Google, these are your drive byers,
they just want to see the answer. 90% never go past the landing page.

3\. People who encounter a problem in their life. Need a solution, can't find
anything on Google, and remember that your site exists.

#1 is where you grow your community. #2 is where you get your money and
potential new users, and #3 is where you spend your money in order to build up
your brand identity.

Why would the 100 people get 100 crappy answers? They'll find the same results
through Google, as they do by going to your site directly.

