
How To Get Your First 1,000 Users - bjonathan
http://viniciusvacanti.com/2011/02/08/how-to-get-your-first-1000-users/
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il
I like the list, but I wouldn't dismiss paid advertising so quickly. Set up a
testing budget and keep testing until you make it work. Groupon, LivingSocial,
etc are seeing tremendous growth from their AdWords campaigns.

Investors and potential acquirers are goig to be a lot more excited about a
scalable user acquisition model like AdWords than fleeting success on social
media.

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patio11
It took me more than a year to figure out how to "crack the AdWords code", but
I get an _awful_ lot of users (and sales) attributable to AdWords. Until then,
it was basically just "throw a dollar a day at it, see what works". (YMMV if
you are in very rich verticals.)

I got curious about this yesterday, so I made a page charting it.
<http://www.bingocardcreator.com/stats/adwords-stats>

I really _wish_ I could just wave my hands at it and scale that up by a factor
of 10.

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silverbax88
Forgive my ignorance, but what is YMMV?

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born2web
YMMV = Your Market/Mileage/Method May Vary

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JoeAltmaier
I love how-to blog entries = its a tutorial, a cheat sheet, a process guide.
Especially when, like this one, they give fairly detailed instructions on
services, techniques, and sequencing.

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mbesto
I agree, but I think instead of saying "How to do XYZ" it should be "How I did
XYZ". Just because it worked for one person doesn't mean it will work for all.

My only problem with a lot of these "How to" blog lists is when they fail to
provide context. (not saying this one particularly, just a general
observation)

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jasonmcalacanis
The best way to get your first 1,000-10,000 users is to land a successful
angel, mentor or advisors.

Someone like Sacca, Dave McClure, Naval or Kevin Rose can bring tens of
thousands of users--instantly.

In fact, the way I pitch myself as an investors is:

a) product feedback b) help raising your seed/1st round c) bring your first
10,000 customers

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vacanti
If you're a first-time entrepreneur and haven't gotten traction, it's going to
be really hard to get you or anyone like you as an angel, mentor or advisor.

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notJim
I know this will vary from startup to startup, but how do you know when you
have traction?

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djjose
I think the easiest answer to this is: when people are coming to you versus
the other way around. I think this is true even outside startups, just in
general once you're wanted you're over - at least the initial - hump.

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brlewis
Will TechCrunch write about a site that already has users? I thought they just
wanted exclusive scoops on brand new stuff.

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asanwal
TC is great but is waiting for TC coverage worth waiting on getting users? Esp
since there is no guarantee you'll get TC coverage.

I don't think so.

TC Coverage < Real Users

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mattmillr
It's also important to consider if TC readers are your target audience. I've
seen big pageview spikes from TC and other widely- (or poorly-) targeted press
coverage that didn't convert very well, whereas coverage in much smaller but
better focused publications resulted in more overall conversions.

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wesleyzhao
The article mentions 1,000 visitors is fairly easy and getting them to stick
is the hard part. But what is a good number of users that stick around? And
how about what is a good benchmark for visitors as well?

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sursani
That's a really good observation. I am also launching a free service geared
towards a specific niche audience and we are trying our to acquire more and
more users. I think that in addition to getting some press on tech blog like
TechCrunch, we should probably target industry specific bloggers more since
that is where our true customer may be.

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ahrens
Great article! I am currently in the first stage of starting up my company and
will start implementing most of it as soon as we have enough material to do it
successfully.

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LokWan
It sounds a lot easier than it really is. What's a good entry page for a blog?
Right to the content?

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MaxGfeller
thats a really interesting article, thank you! How did that work for you?

