
Ten Steps To Ten Thousand Sign Ups Before We Even Launch Our Startup - sachinag
http://www.sachinagarwal.com/ten-steps-to-ten-thousand-sign-ups-before-we
======
mattmanser
At time of writing:

Twitter followers: 77 Facebook followers: 75

Their tactic of making it really difficult to join the beta doesn't seem to be
working so far, but he didn't say how long they've been doing this.

Be interesting to see if they get to a good number in beta. This feels a
little like meaningless link bait till then.

Please post again in a few months time with how this worked out!

~~~
pardo
"This feels a little like meaningless link bait till then". Spot on.

When I saw the title of the article I assumed that they already got the 10,000
sign ups and were explaining how did they manage to do it.

As I was reading through their list I was getting more and more skeptical.
Some of their points make sense, others, simply don't ring true.

I then checked their Twitter account and saw that they had (at the time of
writing) 93 followers. Really? 93? Not that I think that Twitter followers is
the most useful metric as a measure of interest in a web-app (or that Twitter
is really useful as a marketing tool for that matter) but for people that
claim to be riding the waves of the viral marketing and that seem to put a lot
of value and effort into increasing their Twitter and FB numbers, 93 followers
sure looks a little low.

I had to come back to the comments in HN and to read carefully the title of
the submission again to realize that they don't actually claim to have the
10,000 followers _yet_. Only that they want to reach that number. And they
hope that the steps outlined in the article will help them to get there.

This misunderstanding may well be because English is not my first language,
but even so, it still smells like link bait to me. I'm pretty sure that almost
everyone around here will have his own opinion on how to get 10,000 sign ups.
Until that opinion has been proven to work in real life, it's still a hunch,
not all that useful.

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patio11
I'm a huge, huge fan of #3 (treating content as something more than blog
posts). Calling something a blog post is a lot like calling something a
newspaper article: it gives you an instantaneous framing for the value of it.
That framing is _not the one you desire_ in most cases.

You'd be freaking amazed how much the presentation of something influences how
much people trust it, how long it's shelf life lasts, and whether it spreads.
This includes transparently superficial bits like whether it has a decent logo
or illustration accompanying it or whether you date the content. ( _Don't date
evergreen content!_ It only compromises perceived value to know that your
article about elementary school arithmetic was first published in 1993.
Addition hasn't freaking changed!)

~~~
sachinag
I'm actually going to disagree with the "don't date evergreen content", at
least for us. Because we're writing about financial information, we're going
to datestamp revisions because we want someone who comes to us via
Google/Bing/DDG to know that we're on top of changes to the law/investment
environment/etc.

The only reason we haven't yet is because I haven't figured out a way to have
it appended automagically to Pages in WordPress.

~~~
patio11
Edit your theme's page.php to include something similar to:

Last modified <?php the_modified_time('F d, y') ?>

So your understanding of evergreen content and my understanding are a little
different. I agree, if I covered topics where my advice would get stale, I
would prefer to let people know that I have updated the advice recently so
that it was not stale. I just disagree that writing pieces which are capable
of getting stale is a good use of my time, since I am time- and resource-
constrained.

Writing anything which could go stale is time debt for the future, since I
will have to rewrite later, which is extra work for rather little marginal
benefit. Worse, it means I'll have to periodically review and rethink
everything I've ever published to see whether it needs updating, which is
extra work with _no_ benefit that gets _progressively more expensive over
time_ as I grow my little content forest.

I think there are virtually infinite topics in investing which are truly
evergreen, where you could let the article sit for a hundred years and never
need to touch it again. "What is a preferred stock?" is one. "Should I invest
in mutual funds managed by a human being?" is another, though that is more
controversial. ( _cough_ No. _cough_ )

So anyhow, plant evergreens.

~~~
kragen
The US was unusually stable, as countries in history go, over the previous 100
years. Even so, the nature of the stock market, the kinds of things traded in
it, and the regulations pertaining to them, have changed fairly significantly
since 1910. I believe a preferred share is still more or less the same thing
now that it was then, but that they're used for fairly different things.

In any case, you should leave the judgment of whether your writing is still
worth reading when it's ten, thirty, or a hundred years old to your readers,
rather than trying to make the judgment yourself.

------
msy
Interesting and undeniably clever. However given you're looking for so many
people you sure make it sound like you're doing _me_ a favour whereas I see it
as doing _you_ a favour.

Given I know nothing about your product, or how good it is, why on earth would
I want to shout about it from the rooftops before I've even used it for any
length of time? You're effectively asking me to lend my trust network to you
to promote your product, without letting me use it first.

It seems to me you're more likely to get the techcrunch-refreshing, ohh-shiny,
sign-up-to-anything crowd than the kind of people that might be really
interested in your product.

~~~
robgough
There's an air of arrogance about this technique that rubs me up the wrong
way.

I'm sure it will be successful for them, but I won't clamouring to be one of
the chosen few.

~~~
photon_off
I agree completely. In addition, they seem to have achieved "meta-arrogance"
by blogging about it as if it's the right way to do things.

------
johnnyg
I signed up and got an email back that basically said "thanks for signing up,
now dance monkey".

I'm the guy whose money you want and the way your blog and the sign up was
worded, I feel like I'm dealing with a company who has forgotten this. Usually
a company will forget AFTER they are successful, not before.

I'm not sure if I hope this works or not. I will keep tabs on it to see just
how far a beta system can be pushed. I'm glad this test is on your dime and
not mine! :)

~~~
chegra
It really said "dance monkey"? Because you know sarcasm is lost in text.

~~~
sachinag
No, but we really should. :)

Here's the part of the e-mail the parent is referring to:

"In the meantime, if you'd like to follow our story as we progress, you can:

1) Subscribe to our blog: <http://www.blueleaf.com/blog>

2) Follow @blueleafcom on Twitter: <http://twitter.com/blueleafcom>

3) Like us on Facebook: <http://www.facebook.com/blueleafcom>

4) Join our LinkedIn Blueleaf A-team at
<http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=2631858> and follow the company:
<http://www.linkedin.com/companies/blueleaf.com> "

It's a lot of links, but I don't think it's worded in a way that says we
expect a user to do any of these things.

~~~
johnnyg
@chegra: Heh, it was surely sarcasm.

The email is not rude, but its not the traditional "we are so thankful you've
signed up, here's what you asked for" either.

I figured out what bugs me about this approach. I took the time to punch my
email in and instead of getting my reward, I am told of a bunch of other
things I can do to get involved with BlueLeaf. Why would I? I don't know how
good your reward is and I have no prospect of sampling it.

I'm as simple as a lab mouse hitting the button for a pellet. I received no
pellet and am now uninterested as a result.

I am however interested in how other people react. I acknowledge that I'm a
crotchety old man at 28. :)

~~~
theBobMcCormick
They seem to think they're more interesting than they are. That approach might
work for getting access to a beta for the next Valve game, or a preview of the
PlayStation 4 or whatever. But for this site? Bah. I've lost interest already.

------
maxklein
I'm confused about if the things outlined in the blog have actually been
executed, or if this is just a theoretical plan.

You don't have many twitter users, don't have many facebook 'likes', and there
is just one note written so far on the linked facebook notes page.

And what's with the customer acquisition cost - I thought you have not
launched yet, who are your 'customers' then?

Twitter does not allow searches for old tweets, so I cannot say how effective
the twittter thingy is.

So now, is this a tried and proven way, or is this just someones idea on what
could work?

~~~
sachinag
It's what we're doing right now. Time will tell if it works or not, but our
e-mail capture numbers indicate that it is working.

------
theBobMcCormick
#1 and #2 sound like dickhead moves to me. I don't think of _any_ webapp I've
ever wanted a part of badly enough to "beg for an invite", nor do I think I'd
ever want to trust my financial information to a company that has so much raw
contempt for their users that they would even _consider_ making potential
users "beg publicly" for an invite.

------
tommynazareth
You think it is a good idea to brag about belittling users?

Oh please, please, let me in, let me use your awesome product!

It doesn't seem like the guy on twitter was pleading. You might have some good
ideas about marketing, so please, go ahead with them, but get over your self.
You are not that great and you're product is not that great.

Have some respect for the potential consumers who can make or break you.

~~~
sachinag
Pleading is a crappy verb, agreed and point well taken.

~~~
tommynazareth
Thanks for listening, I hope my criticism is helpful. Best of luck in your
endeavor.

------
leftnode
I rather enjoyed the article, but the fact that:

    
    
      * The site isn't https by default
      * Going to https://www.blueleaf.com (or non-www) shows an untrusted warning in Firefox
    

made me weary of signing up. It looks like a beautiful service, but any
website handling real money or financial information should be secure by
default.

~~~
sachinag
HTTPS for the marketing site increases page load times; there's no real reason
to force people just browsing by to a secured server. The app itself, of
course, is secure; it's just on a different subdomain:
<https://secure.blueleaf.com/signin>

My todo for today (assuming my cold doesn't lay me low) is to write about our
approach to security.

~~~
sorbus
Is the page load time that significant in bounce rates? (Your list includes
A/B testing; how about figuring out if you get more emails when the marketing
page is secure or insecure?)

------
jeebusroxors
_We run every single e-mail we get through Flowtown so we know a bit about
who’s coming in through the open door._

For some reason, and I'm not 100% sure why, this makes me do a 180. I
understand it's a beta and closed and the information is freely available
anyway but it does not sit well with me.

The rest of these ideas are great though.

~~~
ben1040
My thought as well. People talk a lot about how social networking services
tend to leak information and violate privacy. Scraping those services for your
own business purposes just seems shady, especially when done through a third
party.

If being an influencer and having a lot of Twitter followers is what gets a
potential user beyond the velvet rope before everyone else, then why not be
overt about it and let them volunteer that info?

------
newmediaclay
Make that Ten Thousand and One. This post worked on me -- awesome ideas.

I especially like that you just don't default to the blog for all content and
announcements. Diversifying your news and updates across multiple channels is
a great way to make it more accessible in some cases and always reaching out
to new audiences.

As someone who is working on getting a product ready for launch
(<http://gethifi.com>), this post was extremely helpful.

------
uptown
"We run every single e-mail we get through Flowtown so we know a bit about
who’s coming in through the open door."

So... as a financial site, the very first thing you do with your user's info
is hand it over to another company you have no control over? Awesome!

------
pmjoyce
#1 & #2 (faux scarcity) seem to be at odds with #9 (using Adwords and other
paid acquisition channels).

Are you paying for people to arrive at your site and then getting them to beg
(or be well connected) to be able to use the service?

------
milesf
For a company that tests the crap out of everything, finding obvious rendering
issues makes me wince.

[http://skitch.com/coderpath/dxkmu/investment-planning-
perfor...](http://skitch.com/coderpath/dxkmu/investment-planning-performance-
consolidation-and-collaboration-blueleaf.com)

~~~
sachinag
Turns out that fixing it doesn't reduce signup rates. The vast majority of
people use the top form above the fold. :)

------
tomjen3
This is a new approach, but you forget to answer a very useful question: what
do I get out of signing up?

------
royrod
Great ideas, many detailed that I have not seen laid out openly before. Being
very selective about "who really wants in on the closed beta" is a great
point.

~~~
amih
I really like this selective sign-in too. Making the pre-launch a scarce
comodity and allowing people to invite their friends at a specific hour builds
up pressure, nice! I should remember this when I do my product launch.

------
klochner
[meta] this comment is about the company, not the blog post. I liked the blog
post[/meta]

Mint is the clear front-runner here, with significant brand recognition and
momentum. I think it's a mistake to _not_ position yourself w.r.t. Mint.

. . . unless you're hoping people get the two confused.

------
joshfraser
seems like you're spending a lot of time and effort that could be better spent
on product development. the biggest risk for your company is that you will
build something that no one wants. and the best way to mitigate that risk is
to have as many people look at your app and give you feedback as early on as
possible. you can play games to make invites scarce and drive buzz, but you're
optimizing for the wrong problem. that scarcity is depriving you of what you
need most right now -- honest and early feedback! don't pull a cuil -- you
need more than expectation and buzz to be successful.

------
brown9-2
What is it that you are A/B testing with such a low level (I assume, the blog
post doesn't seem to state an actual number) of current users?

Are these really accurate experiments of the signup process if your only
visitors are ones who actively asked for an invite or were referred?

------
malloreon
How is this different from Mint?

~~~
bvi
I'd like to see this answered clearly, myself.

Mint has established itself as _the_ top personal finance management app out
there. I love Mint, and think it'll be very difficult to move to yet another
PF tool out there. So what exactly is it about BlueLeaf that is so compelling
that (1) users have to beg to be invited, and (2) it stands head and shoulders
above competitors?

------
huhtenberg
> _Soon, you’re going to be in total control of your financial future_

As any Warren Buffet would tell you this ^ is possible iff your balance is
zero :)

