
Ask HN: How do you get people to use your product when you suck at networking? - ziggystardust
TL;DR: Built a simple web app product, can&#x27;t get it off the ground. Help!<p>To give context to this question, allow me to explain my situation.<p>I have been working as a freelance developer for a few years now and at times the work load gets a little difficult to handle. 
That&#x27;s when I hop on to websites like freelancer.com and upwork to find a few other freelancers to help me out.
The results have been really bad, bad quality developers at extreme rates cause they have have paid accounts.<p>Somehow, on multiple occasions I&#x27;ve managed to find skilled and in-budget developers on craigslist. 
I presume this is because of craigslist&#x27;s dead simple methodology and lack of rating systems or paid accounts.<p>Taking this into consideration, I built a little web app called FreelanceList.in (http:&#x2F;&#x2F;freelancelist.in&#x2F; still in beta.. or alpha-ish) thats follows the craigslist philosophy but focuses on freelancers.<p>Now the current situation is that I&#x27;m not able to get freelancelist.in off the ground!
I&#x27;m good at building products with a team but have no experience with branding or promotions.<p>The projects I work on as a freelancer usually have an active audience or a good brand value hence, I have no idea about launching this off the ground.<p>What do you think should be the next step ?
While you&#x27;re at it, please leave a feedback too :)
Thank you!
======
hluska
I have some feedback for you.

First, your business has to solve a very intense chicken or the egg problem.
Quality freelancers will not join until there are good projects. And you won't
get good projects until you have quality freelancers. In freelancing, the
problem is even more difficult to solve as both sides of the exchange require
quite a large investment in time. Listing yourself as a freelancer (and
building a high quality listing) takes work. And listing a project also takes
work. This is an obscenely difficult problem to solve and networking alone
will not get you there.

Second, you decided to enter a market with a ton of competition. Your
competitors range from the simple but effective (Craiglist) to the complicated
but mostly useless. People who list projects are wise to the game - they know
that most sites deliver shit. And freelancers are also wise. Whenever I've
joined a freelancer website, I've been inundated with 'offers' to do 200 hours
of work for $500 USD. How do you provide better value to both sides of the
market?

Third, your website is quite bad. If I just navigated there by chance, I'd
have no idea what I was even looking at. Much less would I have any idea what
to actually do. Your language and choice of words betray a serious lack of
professionalism. Work on your copy a touch and maybe find someone to read it
over - preferably someone who will tell you the unvarnished truth.

Consider:

"Due to some amount of trolling on the site, filters to be implemented and the
site will be cleaned up within the next 24 hours."

That's not only a grammatical nightmare, but you're coming right out and
telling people not to trust you!

Or, consider "no bullshit listings for freelancers." At best, that's an
extremely unprofessional attempt to sound edgy and hip.

Good luck with this!! You seem like a good person and I'd love to see you fix
this (badly broken) business.

~~~
robin_reala
Re ‘no bullshit listings for freelancers’, it worked for Gandi[1]. I guess OP
is copying them though.

[1] [https://www.gandi.net/](https://www.gandi.net/)

~~~
danesparza
Gandi also used to compete heavily on price and used simplicity as a niche.
(Less so now, I notice).

------
emson
At the end of the day it boils down to consistently making content and
publishing it in multiple channels. Read Content Machine by Dan North and
Authority by Nathan Barry. Both books give you really good insight into how to
make "sticky" content. You will need to write articles on Medium.com and
answer Quora.com questions - each piece should reference each other creating a
web that drives traffic back to your central brand website. Look at the Garry
Vaynerchuck course on Udemy, he describes how to use the various social media
channels to build a personal brand. My website has been tracking how well his
course has been performing [http://www.coursenut.com/courses/udemy-building-a-
personal-b...](http://www.coursenut.com/courses/udemy-building-a-personal-
brand-by-gary-vaynerchuk)

Finally host your own landing page, stick Google analytics on it, and track
how your visitors behave with Inspectlet.com and experiment with A/B tests
(split tests). If you want to learn how to do this on AWS check out my course
and I'll throw in a coupon and save 70% [https://www.udemy.com/go-landing-
pages/?couponCode=HACKERNEW...](https://www.udemy.com/go-landing-
pages/?couponCode=HACKERNEWS10)

Many thanks and good luck!

~~~
madelinecameron
Is that course actually useful? Watching a lot of Gary V's vlogs and ask shows
makes it seem like he only puts that out for people who are clueless.

Is it Social Media for Dummies or is it actual discussion of strategies?

~~~
1337biz
Super relevant question at that point. I am highly skeptical on Gary Vs stuff
as well.

~~~
mixmastamyk
I think his strategy can work, but the catch is you need some charisma and to
persevere over a number of years, which are both harder than they look.
Therefore take a hard look at yourself beforehand.

------
zerognowl
I start products with marketing as the base, that way when it comes to launch
day, I have everything I need to start spreading the word about it. So many
developers do their launch in reverse; they build their product, and then
marketing is left as an afterthought.

So get your Producthunt invite, build some Karma on Hackernews, share useful
links on Twitter and gain a following. Create Facebook pages, write tutorials
for your product, do Reddit AMAs, do Reddit selfposts, etc

Try to add value as much as possible. All the best marketers I know are doing
Youtube screencasts for free and showing their prospects that the company has
a genuine passion for the product(s).

~~~
ziggystardust
I agree with you completely. I built this prototype as a quick bare bones
weekend project . Now Im looking to do the marketing and build on top of what
I have or even throw away what I have and rebuild according to real market
feedback.

As mentioned in another comment below I think a landing page is required to
describe what the site is offering

------
gt2
"Do things that don't scale" comes to mind.
[http://paulgraham.com/ds.html](http://paulgraham.com/ds.html)

You eventually want a product that users come to on their own, but in the
beginning, you could talk to users on both sides to get them to come to the
table. If you are interested in the space, this should come easy!

For instance, talk to people who want apps and sites created. Formulate their
requirements into really great, attractive, clear posts on the job board. Give
them logins to your site so that they can see the post. Now you have real
users, and real job listings.

Now "advertise" the job listings, and/or your site in general with freelancers
(tweeting the jobs, tweeting at freelancers, announcements with popular
hashtags, telling your freelancer friends about the new site, etc etc). As
others have said, when there are job listings, the freelancers will stick
after their first click when they see there are listings.

Get feedback from both sides. I think the freelancers will be more
able/willing to communicate electronically their feedback, and you will
already be in touch with some people who had apps/site projects, so you can
get feedback from some of them directly. Rinse and repeat many times.

I do think the existing freelancer sites need improvement in the personal
touch area, so I think it's totally possible for you to compete, and even a
major advantage to you in the beginning stages since I think success will
hinge upon you doing things like this, which don't scale.

Good luck, please post a follow up to let us know how it goes!

~~~
jmatthews
This is the best advice I think you've received. Yes, the site needs work,
yes, you need to redo the copy, but to solve the chicken and egg problem you
need to contact people trying to hire freelancers and post jobs for them.
Consider it a feature of the app. A walled garden that solves your chicken and
egg problem as well as making your service a multiple better than your
competitors.

When you can't keep up with your listings then you have "new problems" and new
problems pay way better than old problems.

------
jeffmould
Several things:

(1) Your real market is the people/companies seeking to hire freelancers. You
need to focus the site on that. Once you start having jobs listed, the
freelancers will come. Otherwise, as a freelancer there is no real reason to
join unless you offering some other benefit. (2) It's fine if you only want to
have freelancers from Mumbai or Bangalore, but if you want listings you need
to open that up to more than just those to locations. (3) Change the Title of
the page "No bullshit Listings for Freelancers" really doesn't sound
professional and if you are targeting people/companies seeking to hire, may be
a turn-off. (4) Create a landing page that tells what and why. I understand
you want "simple" but at the same time you need to explain what/why/how.

~~~
ziggystardust
based on feedbacks, here's a little demo landing page.. do you think its
possible to work along these lines?
[http://freelancelistin.launchrock.com](http://freelancelistin.launchrock.com)

------
robertelder
From the YC lecture series:

Lecture 4 - Building Product, Talking to Users, and Growing (Adora Cheung)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yP176MBG9Tk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yP176MBG9Tk)

------
dasmoth
Note that your site currently doesn't work in Safari (desktop or mobile). A
quick glance at the error console shows that you're using the Fetch API [1].
Polyfills are available.

Have you tried running any adverts? Ultimately, I suspect it comes down to
either running a marketing campaign yourself or networking enough to find
someone else who's prepared to handle that side.

[1] [http://caniuse.com/#search=fetch](http://caniuse.com/#search=fetch)

~~~
ziggystardust
turns out I have been developing the site on safari tech preview and fetch api
is only supported on tech preview! Thanks for the feedback.. I'll work on
this.

~~~
iyn
You can use this polyfill and it should work:
[https://github.com/github/fetch](https://github.com/github/fetch)

~~~
ziggystardust
Done and online [http://www.freelancelist.in/](http://www.freelancelist.in/) .
Thanks, you guys! :)

------
qwrusz
I think your title simplifies your issue to the extent it's difficult to
answer.

#1 Is your product aimed at freelancers like yourself as you describe, for
when "work load gets a little difficult to handle" and these busy freelancers
are looking for "other freelancers to help" do some of the heavy lifting, but
you (busy freelancer) remain the point person between the client on an already
established project?

Or

#2 Is your product aimed at _everyone_ i.e. competing directly with
freelancer.com and upwork.com where you are trying to: (a) get a market of
clients to post their project needing a freelancer and (b) have a community of
freelancers for clients to hire from?... With your revenue being some version
of taking a small cut per job.

I realize your site is pre-beta and not finished. But knowing the actual goal
here helps provide feedback and better advice for next steps.

Side note: How to get people to use _______ (fill in blank) when you suck at
networking has very different answers depending on what the product is.
Sucking at networking is rarely the main issue. I suck/don't enjoy networking
but it turns out it only gets you started, other kinetic factors take over
quickly (word of mouth by clients is an example).

~~~
ziggystardust
Initial goal was #1 but no freelancer will stay on the site unless theres a
steady flow of projects . So it turns out #1 is not a very sustainable model.
The model will have to eventually move towards #2 But it's definitely not
necessary that it'll move towards #2 as we are trying to do a direct feedback
cycle of development. I guess we can Let it evolve?

~~~
qwrusz
_Old side projects are the inverse of Moore 's law - project relevance is cut
in half ~every 2 years. Wait too long and projects become useless/outdated._
Go after it soon or drop it. Work on something new.

A site for freelancers needing extra manpower from skilled "sub-freelancers"
isn't such a bad idea. It could be sustainable and profitable. I wouldn't
discount this idea too quickly.

IMHHO ignore "eventually will have to move toward _xyz_ " thoughts creeping in
at this point. No path is a must follow. Maybe there are third or fourth
directions it could turn toward.

Again, hard to give concrete advice with the limited info, but:

(I) The site is not ready or close to ready. Start with a newsletter or email
list maybe? Can be weekly or ad hoc. Potential hook: "Are you a freelancer who
would like to be notified by email ONLY when a fellow freelancer needs some
extra help on a big project that pays $ and requires skills you have?"...Time
needed, skills needed, pay involved and lead FL contact info will be listed.
Sign up here!!! (you can have check boxes for skills during sign up - verify
if you can).

Or

(II) Decide if you want to compete/join freelancer.com and upwork.com market.
Why? How? What's different? How different? Are you sure you want
to?...Networking with freelancers won't be your problem - they will come.
Client side noise is a bigger problem (some people call/lump this with "CAC").
Displacing or joining market incumbents will be a pain; Need a =>product and
money and luck and energy. Not impossible biz to get into but a slog.

Start a new HN thread when that project #(II) is actually beta ready and you
have a 1-2 sentence why your site vs freelancer.com or whomever.

I vote for #(I). I bet there are freelancers who need help on big projects and
are looking for quality, reliable second pairs of hands to sub-contract work
to. Use that experience and email list to decide if you want to devote your
life to #(II) as that option is a not a side gig type of endeavor. GL!

~~~
cableshaft
> Old side projects are the inverse of Moore's law - project relevance is cut
> in half ~every 2 years. Wait too long and projects become useless/outdated.

I don't think everything falls under this. I have some ideas I never got
around to finishing that are years and years old and would still be just as
viable today (just have to be made for a different platform, different payment
structure, and somewhat different design). Although these projects I'm
referring to are games.

That being said I generally agree with the statement.

------
Kiro
Ads. Seriously. Say what you want about ads but they have helped me gain
traction on both my games and my products. Only enough to get the word of
mouth moving and after that it usually sorts it out itself.

~~~
gk1
I would advise against ads if you're just starting and don't even know if you
have a real product on your hands nor how to run ads. That's an easy way to
waste a lot of money very fast.

~~~
sebastianconcpt
Agree, ads are an optimization. They are okay as a multiplier of what you
already validated to some degree

~~~
Kiro
Disagree. Ads are great for validating your product quickly.

~~~
sebastianconcpt
Maybe ads could help you validate value proposition but here people was
referring to investing a probably significant value in ads and not just using
it to explore/validate marketing strategy, fair?

~~~
Kiro
> people was referring to investing a probably significant value in ads

Who did? I started the discussion and if you read the whole thread you can see
I'm talking about spending $5-10 a day.

------
nnq
Q: How do you get people to use your product when you suck at networking?

A: Ask this question on HN mentioning your product!

Damn... you're good!

~~~
omginternets
Agreed. In case the OP is reading, I'm left with the feeling of having been
duped into reading an advertisement where I had intended to lend a helping
hand. I invite the OP to consider just how bad this is: I feel like my
benevolence has been punished.

Tricking people is not a good marketing strategy. Part of the reason I visit
HN is to see what others are doing. "Hey, look at this business I'm lauching"
would have been an infinitely better headline.

Don't deceive. People will resent you for even the smallest, most
insignificant deceit. Exhibit A: me, right now. Objectively, you haven't
really hurt me, but I'm still ticked off. ;)

~~~
ziggystardust
haha! no way.. The site is literally 2 hours of work and no way can be called
a 'product'. This question popped into my head while working on the
prototype.. I'm sorry if you feel misled but that wasn't my intention at all

~~~
omginternets
No need to apologize! I just wanted to give you my earnest reaction, as I
suspect others may have reacted like me.

And 2 hours of work is still a product! It's an _efficiently-built_ product,
which is a good thing!

------
spyckie2
You are not at the branding and promotions stage - you are at the UX and user
studies stage.

Your user experience is ... void of any considerations for your user. No way
to search for a particular set of projects, no way to see potential matches,
no way to see how old a particular request is, no way to unselect a city, etc.

I would strongly recommend you avoid marketing and promotions until you have
iterated several times on real user feedback. Your current product will most
likely leak users so you'll just be wasting money.

Don't try to get user testing through marketing - that's super inefficient.
Just pay people directly to use your product and give you some real world
feedback. Much faster, cost effective, and easier to do.

~~~
spyckie2
To address your need for marketing - I strongly think this is a red herring.

Don't spend effort or money to grow your website until you've validated that
your website actually solves a real problem and does it well. It doesn't cost
that much to validate and it can save you a ton of wasted effort.

I've skipped this step several times, and I can tell you it is not worth it.
You can spend a year marketing and growing your project only to realize that
it's just not a strong enough value add to be a business.

Your brain doesn't want to hear rejection so it often skips this step. But
listen to reason. You can spend a week paying real users to tell you how much
your app sucks, or you can spend a year of your time and energy and thousands
of dollars marketing to come to the same conclusion.

Don't skip this!!!

------
jstanley
I tried to list myself on your site but the only options for city are Mumbai
and Bangalore. I guess I could just pick the closest, but it's still 4,500
miles...

~~~
ziggystardust
I was hoping to start in India first and slowly allow other countries.. Maybe
I should open it up for all right away?

~~~
davelnewton
Why would location matter for the bulk of freelancing?

~~~
joshvm
It may be useful for local payment platforms e.g. if you started this in China
you might advertise it so that users can easily pay using AliPay. Perhaps it's
a business or regulatory issue - presumably the website takes a cut of the
payment and working only in your home currency simplifies that.

Other issues are that you can easily deal with support requests in your own
language and timezone (and cultural effects matter a lot too). If you live in
India and deal only with Indians then you can respond to problems immediately.
If all your jobs are in the US and all your freelancers are in India then you
have a disparity there.

The simple answer to your question is that for the freelancer it doesn't, but
for the platform it may simplify things a lot to keep it local. In fact at a
hyperlocal level (say a mid size town) there may even be a more lucrative
market than going global because your USP is specifically connecting devs and
companies in the same place.

------
gm-conspiracy
Why don't you ask the developers that you have used off of craigslist what
would make them want to sign up?

They are your target market, no?

~~~
ziggystardust
Yes.. I can But if I call them on right now they might get an impression that
it's a useless site with no project listings to apply for.

~~~
gm-conspiracy
I am not saying to get them to sign up.

Interview them. Find their biggest pain with using craigslist to find work.

That is how you will "sell" your service. You solve their problem, and you can
articulate that in an ad or forum post.

------
ziggystardust
Just in case anyone is interested and wants to collaborate, This project is
open sourced at
[https://github.com/Obsessive/FreelanceList.in](https://github.com/Obsessive/FreelanceList.in)

------
snarf21
It seems like you built a product that you want. You've made the assumption
that people other than you don't like using freelancer.com or CL. To me it
doesn't make sense to try to make a product like this without first having
several people tell you why they agree with you (that the status quo isn't
good enough) and what they want different and are ready to use your beta when
it is ready. Then use it yourself to handle your overflow. If that works well
for people looking it may generate organic growth. But as others have said,
use reddit etc. to keep getting more people to try your product and give you
feedback.

------
karmicthreat
I'm going to get downvoted for this, but make some fake content. Projects
users can bid on, but will never win. If real projects get put up, manually
try to get developers interested in bidding on it and into your system.

~~~
Normal_gaussian
Yep it is completely immoral in this case.

In reddit's case they were providing real content, just created by them. In
this case the content is completely fake.

I also think this would be harmful to the business. I have very few
interactions with a service before I make a judgement on them, if most of my
interactions go nowhere (as would be the case if they are fake) I would stop
using the service.

However if the service was just slow I would be likely to still use it, just
check it less frequently.

Of course one viable way of adding content would be to repost content from
other sites - with suitable indications of course.

~~~
ufmace
+1 to fake as in completely made up being a terrible idea. It might be a good
idea to manually enter content you got in other ways, though. Like flip
through other job listing sites, and copy some over to yours manually, or call
up the companies and ask them if it's okay if you enter the info for their
position on your site yourself. Then find freelancers either online or in
person and do the same thing - copy their info over to your site, ask them if
it's okay to do it, or meet them in person somewhere and do it for them.
You'll have to be careful to not "spam" either side with too much content that
they won't be interested in, or they'll all just block you. But it could make
it appear that there's more activity on your site than there really is, which
may make people who find it more organically more willing to at least try it.

------
Gustomaximus
I've experienced the same with Upwork/freelancer. Rating systems seem really
broken too on Upwork especially. They're either game-able or the platform must
like to inflate ratings rather. And I've tried cheap vs expensive and there
seems to be no relationship to quality as you pay more.

It's really frustrating as I know there must be really good guys out there but
I suspect they establish 121 relationships quickly and move off a platform
clipping their earnings. Or some guys start well for some jobs and then you
can see they farm off work and the quality goes to hell.

I've considered this problem myself. The best solution I can think of is for a
platform with physical offices in likely cities for cheaper devs. People work
for an 'in-house' projects a known project manager that has high QA standards,
and after X time proving them-self they get clearance to 'freelance' from
where-ever and bid for projects independently. Or simply not allowed on the
platform.

It would come at a cost of human management, but I imagine many would pay a
premium for known quality. And given the amount of freelancer to jobs ratio
there seems room to cull lower performers and maintain a stable of quality
devs. I guess it would be something between Toptal and Freelancer....

Feel free to steal it. I really need something like this.

------
danellis
The easiest way to get there quickly is probably to partner with someone who
_is_ good at networking. If you're on your own, that brings a lot of other
benefits, too.

------
mmcconnell1618
Who is the target audience for your product? Where do they hang out? Who are
the influencers in their communities? Talk to your target users and get
feedback. If the product is a really great product/market fit then you don't
need to network to get users. You need to make sure your product is solving a
need for someone and then find ways to let them know about it.

------
moron4hire
I have found advertising online to be a full time job, one I'm not willing to
perform, when development is also a full time job. I've gotten much better
mileage out of attending meetups, getting to know people, and eventually doing
talks.

I know you said you are bad at networking, but the market doesn't care. You'll
have to choose: either waste your time for basically zero response advertising
online, or learn how to get over or hide your personal issues long enough to
make networking work.

I didn't used to like it, either. I have very strong opinions about modern
corporate culture (emphasis on the "cult"), that it grates me raw to see so
many other people aspire to such hell. I had to learn to just keep my mouth
shut, avoid the instant gratification of telling someone they were wrong to
avoid turning then off of me so I could focus on my long term goal of building
my business.

------
kardashian007
TL;DR: mostly pull but with appropriate application of hustling

Networking isn't scalable unless you have something industry/domain specific
and can reach influencers (top bloggers, users, etc.). It's probably better to
work on appealing SEO, design and succint message in a way which automatically
sells potential customers on its value. Let the product sell itself 24x7 so
you don't have to do as much work. Then, once profit is coming in, think about
a sales team and hustling others whom don't/won't self-discover. At the
beginning, focus on schelping to solve real/hard problems, providing fanatical
support to early customers and other things that don't scale; and eventually
make the product experience so compelling they voluntarily spread the word as
well.

------
ccvannorman
For advice, do whatever you can to build a small community of dedicated users
(like I could be for example.)

I went to the site and it was blank. Pressed refresh and took too long to
load. I would never return to this site under normal circumstances, but since
you made a case for yourself here I'll check it out another time -- if it's
slow then I'd probably never go back. Use amazon to auto-scale your instances
if you get too much traffic, or .. well really do whatever you can because a
slow website will kill your business.

I am a startup with limited capital who needs competent freelancers, your site
seems apt. Hope it works when I visit it next time.

~~~
ccvannorman
Oh, also you have a troll who has posted a bunch of curse words. You probably
need to filter for that.

One thing that might solve your chicken/egg/community problem AND troll
problem is an invite-only list of a few dozen people.. make your product seem
scarce and special, and then take great care of the few users you have and
grow that way.

------
davycro
Make a great product. Know your audience. If they try it and don't use it then
the product is bad. You don't have a marketing problem. You have a product
problem.

~~~
criddell
Product and marketing problems are often very closely related, especially when
the product depends on users actually using it. For example, what makes Hacker
News special isn't the software, it's the users. Same goes for Reddit,
Twitter, and lots of other sites.

------
free2rhyme214
This isn't very compelling. I recommend solving different problems. (I hope
I'm not harsh, I'm just trying to be honest)

------
mapster
Like you said, freelancers are both job seekers and providers. Get on
freelancer's radar. Can you make a series of videos of you giving a talk about
the broken freelancer market and what you are doing about it? UpWork brought
ppl over by closing elances doors. You have nothing. Start a movement.

------
sporkologist
You have an extremely tough sell there. It sounds like you're trying to get in
on a commodity product, without the sales chops. you may want to continue
working for someone else -- that's not a bad thing, it just sounds like where
you will be better off.

------
caseymarquis
Worth Reading: [https://www.amazon.com/Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-
Continuous...](https://www.amazon.com/Lean-Startup-Entrepreneurs-Continuous-
Innovation-ebook/dp/B004J4XGN6)

------
jminkler
Seems like sort of had been done before (and failed?)
[http://www.assemblymade.com/](http://www.assemblymade.com/) unless I
misunderstand?

~~~
lmenus
What are you trying to say?

------
ekpyrotic
1\. Networking is actually a very bad way to secure initial customers. It is
very unlikely that you are going to find yourself in a room with your target
customers. You'll end up wasting time and energy on people who are never going
to use your product.

2\. Develop a persona for your target customer. Make it tangible so you can
imagine your end-user. Imagine how they go about their days. What their
interest are; what their hobbies are. What they do in the morning; what they
do at night. Their fears and challenges. What is the challenge that your
product is solving for these people?

3\. Now, you should have a sense of who you want to reach. It might be quite a
broad category... 'Heads of Business Development in start-ups', 'Design
freelancers on PeoplePerHour'. At this point you should be in a position to
think about where you might be able to find lists of these people. Go niche,
so you don't overreach. It's easy to capture a small market than a big one.
Start small, and grow to new markets. Maybe, if you're building a freelancer
website, it'll mean dialing down your target market to 'design freelancers in
Aspen'. Try to find a directory of people online that meet this category.

4\. Create a database of all these people. Only start with 100. It should have
their names, companies, email addresses, and a notes column. Fill all this
data in. This is a list of potential early adopters.

5\. Draft these people a short, targeted email laying out in CLEAR and DIRECT
language your valuable proposition. 'I spotted your were a design freelancer
in Aspen. I'm building... I thought you might be interested because... Is this
something you might want to use?' Follow up a week later with an even shorter
note for people that didn't reply. RESPECT their details. Don't spam them.
This is a PERSONALISED message.

6\. You will receive two responses (a) 'yes' \-- that's great, you have an
early adopter; track their use of the service and value them; (b) 'no' \--
that's even better, ask them why they don't think it's a good fit for them;
ask them for feedback; why isn't it attractive; what would make it attractive?

7\. Fill in your database with all these responses. After you have 20-50
responses, you have some important intelligence about whether you have built a
product which ACTUALLY solves a market problem (i.e., you have market fit); if
not, pivot -- build a product that responds to these people's feedback.

8\. Rinse and repeat.

Sorry for the plug... people have told me that the most time consuming bit of
this process is finding these people and their emails. That's why I built Find
Emails Team. You can find it here:
[http://findemailsteam.com](http://findemailsteam.com). For a few dollars, we
can put a manual team to work to find these contact details for you.

Best of luck!

------
musgrove
Hire somebody who doesn't suck. Get some social proof from reputable
spokespeople.

------
known
Forward you app to your alumni

~~~
majortennis
tutors and students alike?

------
artur_makly
check out growthHackers.com - its a forum specially devoted to your
predicament.

------
swiftisthebest
There's a ton of competition. Try something else.

~~~
ziggystardust
even if you enter the space race, there's a ton of competition.

The idea of a bare minimal open sourced app is to build a product based on
user feedback cycle instead of copying what other freelance websites are
doing. This is the only way we can have an app that truly makes a freelancer
happy!

~~~
harvestmoon
Competition isn't necessarily a bad thing, imo. A lot of companies and
successful businesses enter a field where there is a proven demand and need
and find a way to stand out.

~~~
josephcooney
Peter Thiel doesn't think so. See "competition is for losers" et. al.
[http://www.wsj.com/articles/peter-thiel-competition-is-
for-l...](http://www.wsj.com/articles/peter-thiel-competition-is-for-
losers-1410535536)

------
rublev
Get good at networking. It seems like you decided that you're already bad at
it. You got good at programming and it took time right? You're not going to
get good at networking casually just as much as a 'biz guy' is not going to
get casually good at programming enough to launch a product.

~~~
ziggystardust
That's the plan @rublev :)

I'd be great if you guys could point me in the right direction but within the
context of this project .

~~~
rublev
Problem with networking is it's largely a soft skill, so there's no playbook.
There's no 'API' or associated documentation.

~~~
vijayr
One thing that worked for me was volunteering. I didn't volunteer to meet
people, I only volunteered because I had time and wanted to do something
useful. I met very interesting people this way, which was a surprise (to me)
side effect. Another awesome thing is the type of people you get to meet -
they are friendlier, more sincere and nicer than the ones you meet at normal
networking (meetup.com, bars etc) events.

~~~
undershirt
Cool, I used to volunteer in high school, but I used local clubs there to find
those opportunities to help. Where do you go?

------
justinlardinois
So you're a freelancer, and your aim is to build a platform for freelancers.

What immediately comes to my mind is Justin.tv. It was originally just a
website featuring one guy constantly livestreaming his life via a camera on
his hat. Eventually it became a livestreaming platform and gave birth to
what's now Twitch.

I've read a few comments in this thread to the effect of "develop a personal
brand," and I think that's exactly what you need to do. Firmly establish
yourself as a high-quality, in-demand freelancer, and then transition towards
forming a network of freelancers. Maybe initially it'll only be people you've
directly worked with whose quality you can personally vouch for. Once you show
you can provide quality talent and have drawn in clients, _then_ you can start
opening up your platform to more freelancers.

I'll note that I don't have much entrepreneurial experience, so take my advice
with a grain of salt.

