

Why We Sent 25,000 Messages to Users Before We Launched - WadeF
https://zapier.com/blog/2012/07/15/why-we-sent-25000-messages-users-we-launched/

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mikeknoop
One way we (Zapier) got early users in the door was by trolling forums. We
would manually search the internet for people complaining about integrations
that didn't exist (eg. [http://webapps.stackexchange.com/questions/13007/how-
can-i-a...](http://webapps.stackexchange.com/questions/13007/how-can-i-auto-
import-contacts-from-paypal-into-highrise)). We would follow up directly,
build the integration, and instantly have a new customer. Clearly this doesn't
scale [or does it?] but it put us on the right track early when we weren't
sure what people would respond to.

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Maxious
I think you meant trawling ("Trawling is a method of fishing that involves
pulling a fishing net through the water behind one or more boats.")

Trolling would be quite a different thing ;)

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mindcrime
_Trolling would be quite a different thing_

Not really. "Trolling" is also a type of fishing:

<http://www.thefreedictionary.com/trolling>

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rmason
This is one of the first genuinely original ideas that I have seen in a long
time. You can create a site, use AdSense to drive traffic to it to see if your
idea has merit.

This one little additional step lets you actually get into conversation with
people visiting your site before you launch is very much lean startup.

Now as a developer building the product I can hear the objection you won't be
able to get the product built if you keep getting interrupted. But you may be
building the wrong thing. So this makes a lot of sense to me.

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mikeknoop
We tried to build functionality as fast as users were requesting it. It seems
like the AdSense approach will turn a lot of folks off once they realize it's
only a landing page. Clearly valuable in determining if an idea backed by
marketing can get traction.

But, how do you convince those AdSense users to share their true problems (or
do you just target a _really_ specific keyword niche) before they bounce?

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patio11
_It seems like the AdSense approach will turn a lot of folks off once they
realize it's only a landing page._

I'm not a big fan of AdSense smoke testing, but if you're going to do it, you
can fairly trivially raise perceived value above "landing page." Offer an
immediate incentive for giving their email address.

For example, if you're going to offer software to automate X but haven't built
it yet, offer to give people their own personal copy of your guide to X-ing
(written by an X-ing expert). Just put in the email address we should send it
to. P.S. Want to hear about our thoughts on X every week or two? Make with the
clicky-clicky.

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unreal37
Looks like a cool service. Would be worth a sign up to try it.

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prodigal_erik
Where did they find _twenty-five thousand_ people who consented to participate
in their market research? I'm having trouble convincing myself they aren't
spammers.

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WadeF
It wasn't 25,000 people. Just 25,000 conversations. Multiple conversations
with the same people. But the number of people was in the thousands.

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bigiain
Not even that - the article only claims "25,000 messages". Multiple messages
in the same conversation, as well as multiple conversations with the same
person. The number of _people_ may have only been in the high hundreds…

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WadeF
OP here. It was in the thousands. :)

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andys627
what % of people visiting the site? was gonna try olark on my site...

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WadeF
The percentage isn't that great, but we usually aren't the ones initiating
conversation. The quality is definitely what drives us to continue using it.

Olark has a free trial. When we first put it on our site we were pretty
hesitant too, but after the trial we were sold.

