
Getting Users For Your New Startup - pud
http://blog.pud.com/post/5239917032/users
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pud
I wasn't sure whether to put the Hacker News reference in there, for fear that
people might come out of the wordwork trying to game HN after reading this.

That's why I also put in the line about not spamming. I can get rid of the HN
link if people think I should.

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trevelyan
More useful than most things posted here by virtue of being specific with
details and blunt about what worked for you. Thanks.

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chuckywhat
Agree w/ trevelyan. Useful article.

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rfrey
_Good story idea: “I’m not sure if my thing is legal.”_

This is definitely going to the top of my how-to-bait-reporters list.

~~~
philgo20
haha +1

As long as it does not report to some API you are using and terms it comes
with ;-)

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thekevan
"If the writer doesn’t respond, try a different one. But only one at a time —
they won’t like you if you give the same story to their competitor. "

What is a good amount of time to wait between contacting writers? Or how much
time has to pass without a response for you to to decide to move on to the
next one?

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jkincaid
(TC writer here) I'd say send an email, and if you don't get a response in 1-2
days send one more saying that if you don't hear back in the next 24 hours
you'll probably try your luck elsewhere. Don't be threatening about it (the
reporter doesn't owe you anything), just be transparent.

Setting a 'time limit' like this helps makes sure you don't end up on the
reporter's mental backburner indefinitely. Of course, if the reporter is super
swamped this may lead them to simply pass on the story. But usually if it's
good, they'll try to find another writer who can take it.

~~~
RealGeek
I would rather expect to hear a no than waiting indefinitely.

Why can't journalists simply say no for a story? I understand they are flooded
with emails, but a one word no would suffice.

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edanm
I agree with the sentiment, but I don't think I'd react kindly to a one word
"no". Imagine putting in time and effort into an email and just getting "no"
in response.

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pud
One of the best ways to cut down on inbound email, is to send less outbound
email.

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davidu
pud taught me a whole lot when I worked for him. good to see him blogging.

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nikcub
> Good story idea: “My competitor raised $20 million, yet my thing is better.”

That is a good way to get into a writers spam bin. Every writer gets 5-6
stories about related companies when they post something, and it is annoying

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staunch
What are some good ideas?

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gregholmberg
A warning is probably the most potent type of meme. A brief, well-worded
warning can travel far, grabbing a lot of attention along the way.

An overly alarmist marketing campaign is considered FUD.
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty_and_doubt>)

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marcamillion
The issue with articles like this, for me, is that it doesn't quite specify
who this will work for.

As in, it works for sites that just need a ton of users - but not so much for
niche-specific webapps that charge.

If you are trying to build a community and need a lot of numbers in a very
short period of time, then sure....but if you want to find your users for your
specific niche...this advice doesn't quite work.

~~~
rationalbeaver
I think there's good advice here for almost anyone, you just have to adapt it
to your situation. Not all of these work for everyone, but many will work for
most. Let's take your site CompVersions.com (which looks very nice, BTW) for
example:

Controversy - Okay, tough one there. Get back to me on that.

Viral tricks - Allow new users to extend their free trials by another 14 days
if they send an email about the service to 5 people. Or, give new paying users
some amount of credit for doing something similar. Give away a free {thing
designers want} - To enter the contest you must tweet about the service. Tons
of options here.

Affiliate Program - People pay for the service, so this is doable. The
affiliates you want are people/companies who operate popular design
sites/blogs/forums/newsletters/services. If they have ads then they could be
an affiliate (actually, even if they don't). Cut special deals for really good
partners. Consider offering small payouts for trial sign ups and bigger
payouts for paid customers.

SEO - Goes without saying. You need to be thinking about this.

Press - You probably aren't going for CNN here, but there are lots of design
oriented publications both online and off. Think of some story ideas and start
pitching. Are more people going freelance because of the economy? You could
play off that angle. Clients who can't make up their minds about anything is a
classic designer story. If you can put together a success story of someone who
used your product to get an indecisive client to make a choice- that's a story
people want to hear.

Celebrity Endorsement - Offer your product to a highly visible designer for
free. If they like it, ask for an endorsement. Maybe a tweet or two? Maybe a
mention on their blog?

Biz Dev - There are lots of design agencies out there. Maybe this is something
that some of them would be interested in using. Maybe you could do a co-
branded promotion with a company that offers another kind of design tool, like
wire framing or something. Perhaps you could work with Appsumo to put together
a "Designers" package, of which CompVersions would be a part.

Offline Events - Probably not super useful for this. But live design demos in
front of an audience could be fun.

So yeah, I think there's some good material to go on here.

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marcamillion
Err....wow! Dude...thanks for this advice. Many of the things you highlighted
here make total sense, and I have thought about many of them - I guess I
always dismissed it as 'not for me'.

The normal stuff, Biz Dev, SEO, Affiliate Program, for sure.

Here is a simple suggestion, perhaps you should write a version of this post
that is geared to webapps like mine that have a monthly fee.

I bet that would be something the community is interested in. As would I...of
course :)

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danzheng
what about offline events? Are they effective? I recall Yelp did a lot of that
in the early days.

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wmwong
_Offline events work best when your product has strong ties to the real
world._

According to pud, it depends. He gave Evite as an example, but mentioned that
Yelp did something similar.

~~~
pud
An earlier version of the blog post (that danzheng likely saw) didn't include
the section about offline events, though it did include something about Evite
in the "Get creative" section.

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nhangen
What's up with the highlighting?

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pkamb
People love to get clever with links. But it just confuses people. Links
should be underlined and a different color. If you really want people to know
it's a link, make sure that color is blue.

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random42
Startup Idea(?) - Marketing/PR company to get you beta/real users for your
tech/other startup, so that you can foucs on what you are good at, focusing on
the product. Charges per user acquired.

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Vmabuza
One of the best articles i ever read on startup Marketing.

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dennisgorelik
Why is his web site (Blippy) on a steep decline:
<http://siteanalytics.compete.com/blippy.com/> ?

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gommm
Every so often I see people on HN use compete as if it were a reliable
measurement... In my experience it's not.

Compete shows a few of my websites as declining when they are in fact
growing... In one particular case it showed that a website that was tripling
in traffic was declining... It's so unprecise that I often wonder if it's not
just a random number generator weighted by pageranks and mentions in google
trend powering compete, it seems it'd give about the same results...

Here's a link from reddit talking about that:
[http://blog.reddit.com/2010/07/experts-misunderestimate-
our-...](http://blog.reddit.com/2010/07/experts-misunderestimate-our-
traffic.html)

~~~
dennisgorelik
Reddit is a good example of pointing out to inaccuracies of Compete.com Still,
when reporting on Reddit Compete.com is off by factor of 4 (not 10). And the
trend is shown correctly (Reddit growths).

For Blippy.com both Compete.com and comcast.com show very small numbers and
Compete.com shows steep downward trend.

Unless somebody could share more reliable source of data I would assume that
Blippy is on decline.

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ignifero
A bit on the evil side, but thanks for sharing. What about cross-promotion? I
believe already-proven entrepreneurs have multiple channels (online and
offline) to promote subsequent ventures. Also, controversy is popular, but is
it viable in the long run? There is a line between disruption and controversy,
and many startups prefer not to cross it (i m hopeful they choose so for
ethical reasons). There's more to make out of a startup than money.

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ballard
Startup Bus.

