

Be Your Own Best User - magic6435
http://kylewritescode.com/post/26351321272/be-your-own-best-user

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benjaminwootton
Great post.

It's easy to get downheartened when you've just released a new project and
you're only getting 1 or 2 users per day.

What you have to remember though is that almost all successful blogs, sites,
applications started off like this.

I bet the likes of Instagram, Twitter, Blogger were a ghost town for ages
before taking off.

Though Facebook went viral really quickly, I bet Zuckerbergs heart skipped a
beat the first time someone signed up.

Kyle, can you tell us more about that early period when the first handful of
visitors started using the site? How did they find you?

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kylebragger
Thank you. You're very right -- it's so easy to get discouraged at the
apparent lack of activity in any early product, no matter how jazzed you might
be about it. It's also easy to get caught up in the "if you build it they will
come" mindset. Sadly, this seems to be rarely the case, even for the best of
products. (Though as adamtmca notes, it's certainly possible!)

The first few 100 users of Forrst were all my friends and colleagues, and
theirs as well. I invited folks I trusted would give me raw, honest feedback,
and I trusted them to invite similarly-minded people. The next ~1,500 users
came from this post: [http://thinkvitamin.com/design/forrst-finds-designers-
who-co...](http://thinkvitamin.com/design/forrst-finds-designers-who-code-
developers-who-design/)

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ef4
Let me suggest an opposite approach: don't be your best user.

Consider: you are an entreprenur/hacker. If you are also your best user, then
your best user is an entrepreneur/hacker.

This leads to several undesirable effects. For one, your users will value the
product less because they could write it themselves (or they think they
could). For another, you're far more likely to end up in a crowded space with
many competitors, because the need and the capability to satisfy the need are
coincident in the same people. And for another, you may end up with a product
that's tailored to the relatively small niche of "hackers", and unfit for
wider audiences.

Now contrast with a different scenario: go find some people with a problem and
money to throw at it, but no expertise in solving the problem. Learn about
their problem. Most likely you will be horrified at what passes for
"information technology" in their world. When you present your solution, they
will look on it as magic, and you as some technology god.

~~~
fjw
This is a very good point. Forrst's community is geared towards other
entrepreneurs and hackers, so the fact that Kyle was his own best user
actually helped perpetuate the site's growth, while this wouldn't have worked
as well with other less hacker-minded sites. It all depends on what kinds of
people you want to attract and what kind of community you want to build.

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julien_c
Do you know how much the e-book will sell for?

~~~
kylebragger
Initially I was thinking no more than a dollar or two, maybe with a
free/preview version which would include a few selected chapters. On the other
hand, I think this hopefully will be highly valuable to a lot of folks, so it
may end up being higher. (And thanks to Alex for helping me see the light on
that.)

~~~
alexknowshtml
Please don't undervalue yourself like that. This kind of experience and
insight is worth much more than "a buck or two".

~~~
kylebragger
Appreciate that, Alex. I think you're probably right.

~~~
ushi
Set the minimum to one or two dollar and let the reader choose to pay more.
You will be surprised how much are people willing to pay for good content
(They know its great content, because of the great free preview.).

