
Ask HN: How to get people to talk to you? - ajeet_dhaliwal
Getting feedback and iterating is well understand to be important for getting a product to success. It relies on taking to industry people, potential and current customers and your network. Yet in my experience getting people to talk is outrageously difficult. I’m starting to believe there is a phenomena of deep fatigue around responding to anyone about anything.<p>By talk I mean respond in anyway: email, social media etc.<p>There are three groups that I expect to have different success rates:<p>1. Cold outreach. I expected this group to be the toughest and it is tough. I’ve discovered that even if you only reach out after extensively researching a person and know they will have at least minimal interest in the subject, don’t expect a response, like almost ever to any question (remember this is not sales, just an ask for a question or feed back).  Some business books suggest if you just reach out people will be happy to talk. Nonsense in my experience.<p>2. Users of the product. You have a customer using the product but want to find out what you’re doing right and what you’re doing wrong. Or you have a user who spent several hours using the product but hasn’t been back for a while. You want to know why. My expectation was that these people would be more keen to talk but the response rate may actually be worse than the cold outreach.<p>3. Your LinkedIn and direct social media contacts. This group includes people you have worked with in person, sometimes for several years. Not friends or family but certainly well known colleagues who definitely know who you are, what your face looks like, your voice, what you like to get for lunch. Expectation is these people will definitely talk. This one is the biggest shocker. They don’t! They ignore messages as if they don’t even know you.<p>Anyone else seeing this? Have you discovered you were making a big mistake with your approach and changed this up? We have more ways to communicate than ever but no one’s talking.
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hardwaresofton
Just spitballing here, but it seems like you're not giving enough value to
people for any of those cases you mentioned. You want something from these
people (feedback) -- that thing has value -- give them something of value for
it. IMHO:

1\. The trickiest group to "give" something for, because they're the most wary
of scams from people they don't know/have no connection to. What you can give
is less clear here, because it really depends on who you're trying to outreach
to. Are you trying to find new users of the product? What do they have
feedback to give to you on? It semes like the most value you can give here is
either making something so cool (or presenting it as thus) that people want to
give feedback, or promising some sort of rebate or coupon or something. Invite
them to a "beta" user program, make it seem VIP, stuff like that.

2\. Kind of the same thing as #1, make a beta program, give them priority
support, make them feel like VIPs. Give them discounts for what is quite
valuable to you.

3\. Buy someone lunch/coffee/dinner/whatever and tell them up front you'd love
to pick their brain on what you're working on. Trade them something for it --
ask if they have something they want you to test or look at as well.

I have no idea if any of the above is right, but I think I'm right at least in
when I'm saying that the amount of value you're offering people for this thing
you have a pretty high demand/utility for (feedback) is not being matched on
your part.

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ajeet_dhaliwal
Thanks for this. A year ago, or even perhaps 6 months ago I would have said
you’re right and I’ll try it. Now I’d say been there done that. Not to suggest
your advice is wrong, I think it’s probably correct but I think it’s something
else, beyond this.

What’s your experience? Has what you suggest been enough to get YOU the
outcome you desired?

~~~
hardwaresofton
I can't say I do much of #1 or #2, but my advice for #3, was worked well
amongst my friendgroup. Though of course, we end up doing more than just
talking about the product I'm trying to run by them, I generally get some
decent feedback, even on little things.

