

Ask HN: Any resources for solving the chicken-egg problem? - arisAlexis

I am preparing our startup launch in the next few months and I would appreciate if someone has any resources about this problem (how to get users to register because your site needs users to function). It is based on the principles of uber and airbnb.A two-sided community&#x2F;marketplace. How did these sites start? With promises? Local campaigns? Global launch through an app? This is also a question in YC&#x27;s application form.
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vishalzone2002
There is a way that has worked for established companies like Ariba, Quora,
etc. It has also worked for me to some extent. (I also got a response to cold
emails that I sent to ariba and few other founders).

1\. Fake one side of it : This should be applicable to most marketplaces but
not all. For ex, you can fake the users who answer questions on Quora.

2\. Fake both sides : This is a bit extreme but definitely a practice used.
For ex, fake users asking questions and fake users answering on quora. This
basically starts to create momentum validating it for new users.

3\. Content : Content is a new way to solve this. This is something I have
tried first hand. Create a blog on the same domain. Start creating content
that explains your marketplace and starts to attract both sides of your
marketplace. You can also strategize so that you start attracting the heavier
side of users first( ex : buyer/seller case. If you have buyers you will end
up having sellers soon).

One really important note is to see the cause and effect of your marketplace.
Which side of marketplace will be easier to build if you have the other built.

Hope it helps, All the best !!

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britknight
You might want to give this a read:
[http://paulgraham.com/ds.html](http://paulgraham.com/ds.html) ("Do Things
That Don't Scale").

It's the best piece I've ever read dealing with the question of attracting
users to an early-stage startup. The gist of it is this: your first 100 users
will be completely different from your last 10,000. The first 100 have to be
courted - you're going to have to bend over backwards to make them happy. If
that means customer support emails from the founder, so what? Those first 100
users, the ones who are overwhelmed by your support, will be the most valuable
customers you'll get, because once they're through the door, network effects
can really start to kick in.

The apocryphal story I've heard (but never verified) is of how PayPal broke
out in the eBay marketplace. Instead of trying to convert customers with
advertising and the like, they pretended to be customers on eBay, offering to
buy inexpensive items from popular sellers before asking if the sellers
accepted PayPal. This got the first few sellers through the door, and once
they started using it the network effects propagated through eBay and beyond,
turning PayPal into the giant it is today.

Hope this helps. Good luck!

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jchung
Is your community a one-sided community, two-sided community, or marketplace?

If it is the second or third, you ought to read HBS Professor Andrei Hagiu's
case and article about this dynamic:
[http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=24044](http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=24044)

Platform Thinking also has a pretty comprehensive article on this:
[http://platformed.info/seeding-two-sided-businesses-
strategy...](http://platformed.info/seeding-two-sided-businesses-strategy-
chicken-and-egg-problem/)

My two cents here is that the best place to start in disrupting the chicken
and egg problem is to reduce the number of users you need to get off the
ground. Scope to as small a group as possible to demonstrate that the app
provides the value you are hoping to provide, and then grow from there. If
you're making an app for teenagers, start in one high school. If it works,
grow to two, then four, then eight, and so on. You can scope geographically or
by affiliation or in any of a number of other ways.

Good luck.

~~~
arisAlexis
these are good articles, I was searching for that kind. it's a two-sided
community/marketplace a combination of the two.

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MalcolmDiggs
It's nice to build up a roster of pre-signups before you launch. It's super
easy to throw up a launchrock.com page on your site. Collect emails while
you're building the product, then when you launch just send a blast to that
group. Should get you the initial inertia you need. It's also worth trying to
get your thing listed on sites like betalist and producthunt.

But in general, I really wouldn't worry about it. Early adopters LIKE to be
first. So while a normal user would be turned-off by an empty marketplace,
your early-adopters won't necessarily see it that way. They'll help you build
out content and fill up the marketplace, so that normal users find it
attractive down the line.

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mtmail
You mean website that need user generated content? Even a big sites like
reddit/digg/twitter started with just the founders and friends being very
active, sometimes creating multiple accounts (I'm just reporting what I've
read, not suggesting you should to that).

Classifieds sites are often seeded with crawled data or offline data or manual
data entry.

Airbnb and uber I think started with approaching sellers and drivers directly.
That means cold calling, offline ads or meeting them in person. And probably
it started months before the launch and included some kind of incentive like
"no listing fees for you in the first year". It's like a waiting list: people
sign up, but they can't see the product yet. Only after there are 100s of
users you show them the product.

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cianchette
One solution is lots of money so that you can buy your way into both
marketplaces quickly.

A better solution as jchung pointed out is to narrow your scope until you have
enough resources to create a great market. For example:

USA -> California -> Bay Area -> Stanford -> One Dorm

~~~
arisAlexis
how to do that if my service doesn't involve professionals? uber may had to
spend money to convert taxi drivers but airbnb used ordinary people. you mean
through advertising? that too needs people to be already present in the
platform..

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smeyer
Are you asking how airbnb could have spent money to attract users? For
example, they could have spent money to provide a discount (charge the guest
$100, pay the host $200, both are more likely to join than at a market rate of
$150). Also, they could have acquired hosts by offering a guarantee, such as
paying for 3 nights a month if they don't have at least 3 nights worth of
guests. There are also more general techniques like advertisements and
salespeople and such.

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mapster
Paths to success in this realm normally involve a lot of luck and moxy. For
some insight, see the Airbnb interview on Mixergy

[http://mixergy.com/interviews/airbnb-chesky-
gebbia/](http://mixergy.com/interviews/airbnb-chesky-gebbia/)

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threepipeproblm
I honestly don't want to be mean here. But I worry for you that a startup with
such an obstacle should have had a plan of attack from the beginning, and even
then would have been a long shot. Is rapid early viral growth your only hope
now?

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arisAlexis
I didn't launch yet. we are "in the beggining" and certainly not hopeless :)

