
Getting Users Is Hard - ryansam
I&#x27;m building a mobile app to create and share social events with your friends. A social event would be going to the bar, house party, or meeting up for coffee. You can fill out a simple form (event name, description, date, time) and post to a feed for your friends to see. Your friends can notify you they&#x27;re going by pressing the &quot;attend&quot; button.<p>Right now I&#x27;m trying to solve the communication problem. Everyday you might meet up with your friends at the bar after work, invite them to lunch, coffee in the morning, or dinner in the afternoon. But you have to do the dance. You text everyone who you want to come, wait for them to reply and they may not even want to go. And for each person you invite you have to do the dance longer. This has many times wasted over an hour for me.<p>So I propose a faster solution. If you want your friends to meet you at the bar, create an &quot;Event&quot;. The event has a title of what the event is (e.g. &quot;Going to the bar&quot;). It has a description to get your friends excited (e.g. &quot;$2 margaritas&quot;). It has the address (e.g. &quot;123 SomeBar St.&quot;). Lastly it has the time (e.g. &quot;Tonight at 8pm&quot;). As soon as you post it to the feed all of your friends get a notification that you just created a new event. They can then all tell you if they are going by hitting the &quot;attend&quot; button.<p>Now I&#x27;m trying to get my first users. Yesterday was my first day. I made a spreadsheet of everyone I can message that live in my target area. My list is 82 people. Yesterday I contacted 24 people and got one person to sign up, I was hoping to get five. But most of the people I messaged didn&#x27;t even respond.<p>It&#x27;s definitely a grind. I was wondering if anyone has any tips on how they got some of their first users. What was it like? Or any stories of how they got their first signs of growth.<p>Also if you have this problem I could really use some feedback on my app. You can check it out by searching &quot;bbook.io&quot; in the Apple App Store.<p>Thank you guys for reading!
Ryan Sam
======
root_axis
You're targeting an extremely saturated market. Unfortunately the need for
your app is already solved by something like Facebook or even just a group
text e.g. "2 dollar margaritas at 123bar, meeting there at 8, come on out".
Ultimately the level of coordination and opt-in required by the friend group
isn't really worthwhile for the mass market, you'll need to be a little more
innovative to find some success, but the fact that you're disciplined enough
to actually bring your ideas to fruition means its just a matter of iterating
on your ideas till you build something more compelling.

------
gkoberger
Wait. You're in Texas and are trying to get people to use an app that
encourages them to meet in person, often in groups? During a pandemic where
people are dying?

I always want to be supportive of anyone building anything, but seriously...
stop. Put it on ice for 6-12 months. This app sucks. Technology should be used
to help people. Spend your time doing something good during the pandemic, not
getting them killed.

~~~
liquidise
I'm not sure i've ever read an HN comment i find as distasteful as this.

The OP is building an app to help people meet, yet by their own admission have
managed to attract _one_ user. They asked a question about a common issue
engineers face: onboarding and marketing. Your comment ignores nearly every
shred of this substance. Instead you accuse them of "getting [users] killed"?
Patently absurd. To cut them down at the knees in this way is counter
productive at best.

In the greater context of American society, Urban Isolationism is a real
problem. You can argue that it is a less urgent issue during covid, but the
dangers remain all the same. I applaud the OP for trying to chip away at this
problem. Crazy to think your comment is the HN-upvoted response to their
efforts.

What a place this has become.

~~~
gkoberger
Hey Ben! Thanks for the feedback. If it wasn't in the middle of a pandemic
where people are dying, you'd be right – negativity on HN toward makers sucks,
and is way too prevalent.

You can check my comment history, I spend a LOT of time helping people who are
building things. I love makers, and like yourself, I'm a founder. I'm pretty
sure this is the first time on HN/Twitter/etc I've been negative about someone
putting something out into the world.

But it is a pandemic, and this app is trying to get people to do something
that will endanger themselves and others. I'd even be supportive if he was
just building it for when COVID slows down, but this whole post is about
getting people to USE it. Right now.

People are dying... even if not directly due to the author. If they built
something that helped people connect virtually, I wouldn't have said something
"distasteful". But context is relevant here.

Ethics are as important to technology as code is.

(And on a personal note, I know you've heard this before... we were at RIT at
the same time, and you had to take the same ethics classes I did to graduate.)

~~~
ethanwillis
I think that it would be more helpful instead of shaming Ryan into not
building a meetup app at all to instead offer the suggestion I'm about to.

Why not spin the meetup app to be a way to connect people virtually to reduce
isolation? I know everything is bigger in Texas, but there is a huge target
audience (maybe even bigger:)) outside of Texas.

Just look at netflix party as an example.

------
tobyjsullivan
I've thought and read a bit about getting initial users but never done it
successfully so I can't offer much from experience. That said, reading your
experience with your list of 82 prospects, I don't see where you demonstrated
value to them. Demoing value is different from merely "explaining" value.

One of the classic missteps is expecting people to inherently "see the value"
of what you're building. Nobody just sees the value like you do. You have to
demonstrate it. Show them how their life will be meaningfully improved with
your app.

Couple that with event organization being a two-sided problem. Any successful
product needs to offer value for both organizers and attendees. You've
mentioned time-saving for the organizer - great - but what does an attendee
get out of it? For both parties, how are they coordinating currently? Is your
app clearly 10x better for both sides?

Assuming you've got all the above checked off, then I would start with a
simple strategy: Organize some events with your app. Be your first user, and
make the friends you invite your second, third, and fourth users. Did your app
make organizing easier? Or did nobody actually RSVP when you know they would
face-to-face?

Remember, introducing an app into any experience inherently adds friction. So
your default starting point is that you're actually making it harder for
organizers to get RSVPs on the books. Your app needs to offer enough value to
make up for that friction.

I would expect there'll be a grind until you hit a point where people are more
likely to attend events you organize through the app, and those attendees
decide to use your app for their next event. At that point you're viral. But
until that point, you've got an app that makes things worse for the user
compared to their current alternative.

------
jlgaddis
> _If you want your friends to meet you at the bar, create an "Event". The
> event has a title of what the event is (e.g. "Going to the bar"). It has a
> description to get your friends excited (e.g. "$2 margaritas"). It has the
> address (e.g. "123 SomeBar St."). Lastly it has the time (e.g. "Tonight at
> 8pm"). As soon as you post it to the feed all of your friends get a
> notification that you just created a new event. They can then all tell you
> if they are going by hitting the "attend" button._

So you're making an app whose entire functionality is just _one_ of Facebook's
_many_ features? And with Facebook already having a billion or so users -- a
large fraction of which likely _already_ use Facebook's "Events" for exactly
this purpose -- how do you plan to get everyone to use this completely
separate app -- that no one else they know of uses -- over Facebook?

I really do wish you the best of luck but it seems like you've got several
things going against you before you've even really got started.

Just the whole "network effects" thing is gonna kill it.

~~~
ryansam
You mentioned one of the issues with Facebook. They built a product to connect
everyone around the world with their friends online. Then added more features
on to that (well I think the original facebook events has been there forever).
But events was not their focus. I'm focusing only on events just for cliques
of friends. I want to be the best at that and build a product that has the
most value to those people.

~~~
armatav
This was exactly my excuse when I built the same app.

Take a look at this; [https://www.nfx.com/post/network-effects-
manual](https://www.nfx.com/post/network-effects-manual)

------
atum47
my friend got into biking recently (bicycle) and wanted me to create an app so
they can organize bike rides (cause they go in groups), extra functionalities
would be share gps routes and status (heartbeat, speed...).

I answered him to take a look at the app store, and if there's less then
thousand apps just like that, I worked create one for him.

not to be a dick or anything, but these kind of things I don't believe would
fly. you have your WhatsApp groups, your Facebook groups, your telegram
groups... how the hell am I supposed to compete with that?

why people would left a app they already use to for a while to use mine?

I think the same questions apply to your project.

Again, not to be a dick, just my opinion

~~~
karamanolev
To echo that, just for cycling, there's Strava events, which have decent
functionality. I've seen a lot of events organized through that. So this is a
solved problem, like I believe, OP's is.

------
dsshanley
A friend build something that was pretty much this in 2016/7
([https://appadvice.com/app/down-for-
whatever/1060924679](https://appadvice.com/app/down-for-whatever/1060924679))
and failed harder and learned the lessons you are learning more slowly.

There are excellent points in all of these responses, and customer development
is critical before you dive into product. I would suggest you go through the
process of:

• truly identifying your goals (what do you want to get out of this? is this a
10 year business or just a side project)

• target spaces where users already exist (FB groups, LinkedIn groups, Shopify
marketplace, etc) where you can access them

• Based on your goals, decide on whether you want a small % of a large user
base or a larger % of a very niche user base. As you are discovering, only a
small % of folks are going to be interested if there's not a massive
frustration or fear you are tapping in to.

------
ryansam
I would like to comment a little bit on my competitors. Facebook and
meetup.com are search based events. If you want to find something to do you
have to search it. You could get invited as well but if you don't you will
never know about an event unless you actively look for it.

They are not the same culture ethier. I would not go on meetup.com to see if
my friends are going to the bar. The same goes for Facebook. Also I'm 21 most
of my friends don't use Facebook. I went on meetup.com to find coding events
or networking events. A lot of my friends have never heard of meetup.com.

My problem is I hate texting people every time I'm trying to go out for the
night. If people don't already have plans that I can go to, I have to create
the plans. Then I have get everyone on board with them. I have texted like
over 20 people doing this sometimes, and we don't always have a group chat, or
want one. People hate group chats sometimes because you get included in a
conversation that you didn't even want to be included in the first place. Plus
your phone dings too much with group chats. And some people can't make it due
to timing, or simple they don't want to go. So I would love an app where I can
just go on it, see what all my friends are doing that night, and go to their
events.

~~~
root_axis
You may be on to something with respect to culture, but _that_ is where the
hard work will be: user experience design and marketing that codifies the
culture into a brand that can distinguish your product among the sea of
commodity social networking software.

~~~
ryansam
Well my signup screen (first thing the user sees) has a background photo of a
night life party to set the tone. Maybe I should make it darkmode themed to
set the tone more but I don't want to discourage people using this to meet up
for coffee. I strongly agree though, lots of hard work will be needed to be
put in culture.

~~~
rblatz
Why are you forcing singup? Skip that, make it optional. When people are
invited to an event send them a unique link tied to their email/phone
number/WhatsApp or whatever. Create a long lived cookie that identifies them
as that user. If someone really wants to create an account with a login and
password let them, but don’t make them create yet another account to manage.

Edit: Also as you build the graph out, consider making all events private by
default, and providing a what’s up feature that would let your
friends/clique/circle/squad or whatever you are calling it know you are
looking for plans tonight. Then let them opt you into visibility for their
evening plans.

~~~
ryansam
Well there is a signup wall however it's "Sign in with Google" or "Sign in
with Apple". For now it's iPhone only so by default everyone already has an
account (after hitting the Apple button). Once on android I think Google is
the default for that as well. Also I could use their APIs to send links to
people who don't have the app.

~~~
rblatz
Obviously your long term goal is to get an app on your users phone.

But today you need to build a base of users and get a network effect going.
That’s going to be extremely hard. Any barriers to getting someone using your
platform should be torn down. Requiring an app is a barrier. Find a way to
build a web version of this to show value and get people to choose to install
the app.

------
amerine
Probably not super easy getting folks in your niche in a global pandemic,
yeah?

~~~
ryansam
The restrictions are very loose where I live, Houston, TX. I don't encourage
using the app unless you are already going out regularly with your friends.

~~~
RL_Quine
You’re being super unpleasant by even suggesting that the lack of legal
restriction makes it a good idea. That means you have no other reason to
suggest that it’s a reasonable thing to do, just that it isn’t literally
breaking the law.

------
muzani
It sounds like you don't have a good enough solution.

First app I did - 1,200 users in the first 24 hours, just with a brief
Facebook post that everyone shared to their friends. If they're not sharing
it, there's a problem there, especially if it's a social app. We paid a
copywriter friend to post it a second time on Facebook, and it got 3,000 users
within 24 hours. After that, further postings did little, but others sharing
the app in their groups or things from the apps got lots of users in. Some
interesting thing I spotted was someone posting the app, someone else
complaining that the app sucked because X, then the poster telling them that
the app was better now. Then we paid bloggers to review the app - the blogging
ranked us well on Google, and we'd get 50% of our traffic through organic
searches, thousands of visitors a month.

It was easy enough that the app and the whole company around it got acquired
as a marketing channel. I think being a marketing channel is ideal these days
for apps that have lots of users but are free, so if you can't get a lot of
users right off the bat, it's just not going to work as a free app.

My cofounder did a sports based site. He got millions of pageviews less than a
year in, although they spent a little on Facebook marketing. They're worth
millions of dollars now.

I'm doing another side project years later, something small I put half an hour
into every day. It started off with about 100 visitors/week from posting on
Reddit, HN, forums, etc. One person shared it on Twitter. I mentioned it a few
months later on HN, after some heavy improvements, and it got a spike of about
300 users in one day. The spike was enough to rank the site on Bing, and it's
at over 400 users/week today (10% returning).

I'm not here to brag; but I'm no Zuckerberg, didn't even get into YC, so it's
doable and repeatable with the right techniques. You shouldn't have to contact
every person from a list, lol.

First thing you should do is look at your competitor. Yours is probably
Facebook Events. How is your app ten times better? Find a way to do things
faster, cheaper, better. Or in this case, probably faster. You might have to
remove the friction of downloading an app, maybe have invites in web, WhatsApp
or SMS. You might want to try instant apps.

------
shthrow
Everyone has some kind of social event app as one of their first ideas. It
never works.

~~~
brogrammer2019
Same here, I built one called "2 Events 1 Time" failed

------
nullsense
You might have a chance if you can get your group of friends to use it
regularly. If you can't even get your own group of friends to use it, you
can't expect much right?

Facebook events solves this basically perfectly for anyone who's network is on
Facebook. The app functionality itself is just an event with location, time
and comments. Nothing fancy or ground-breaking. It's the network effects that
are what make it work. If you don't have that, you don't have anything.

The struggle is guaranteed, the success is not. Even when it doesn't work,
trying stuff still teaches you a lot. Keep it up.

------
arihant
This micro version of clique-only Facebook events is not bad. If someone
builds a usable version of this that will eat into a significant portion of
WhatsApp groups.

I believe if your app can just record my video, then transcribe my audio to
figure out details of my plan (location, time, etc.) and then post an
Instagram story with my video plus metadata in an elegant way with a poll
widget, that is something I would use today.

Maybe later in product lifecycle you can add more useful features within your
app. But I'd definitely start out by latching on to an existing social
network.

~~~
ryansam
That would be a great growth hack. I wonder if instagram has any APIs for
this. I don't know anything about processing speech but maybe if you posted on
my app it would create a story on instagram or make a twitter post. Snapchat
would be better for this because it's more private, not everybody wants
everyone they know to come to an event they post.

------
an_opabinia
An acquaintance of mine spent almost $250,000 paying a Bulgarian contractor
shop to make this exact app a few years ago.

Honestly just consider this a pretty inexpensive learning experience and just
move on.

You can try to tune this out as negativity but if you make yourself vulnerable
to your closest love ones and friends they'd be honest with you and tell you
it's a bad idea, and you would have stopped before you started. This is the
real problem, it's why people will say nice things but not sign up, it's what
you gotta really deal with.

------
TudorBirlea
I've seen this a million times and I have a recipe for it. (note: I'm a
behavioural scientist turned growth marketer) So here's the solution - your
Early Adopter Profile:

For a single person to adopt any solution, it has to:

//> solve a clear problem - what do you help them to do, in what context and
what is the desired outcome

//> the individual has to (1) have the problem badly solved today; (2)
actively looking for a solution; and (3) unhappy with existing solutions
identified; and (4)interested in alternatives - that's your solution

Where do engineers fail? They imagine that a BETTER solution will attract more
users, while the first solution failed to attract any (meaningful numbers).
This is understandable, but there is a better way: understand that the reason
your Early Adopters adopt you is not because your solution but because they
have a frustrating problem that is badly solved. Unless you can convince them
that you Empathise with their problem, they will not pay attention to your
solution.

This is where you should focus right now. Wanna test my perspective? Imagine I
put here an offer for free 1kg diamonds. Valuable? Absolutely! Credible,
reasonable, trustable? Naaah. You need to pull your solution's features out of
those Early Adopters, by validating what's missing for them in their problem
space. Please observe that Adoption has only 20% to do with you and your
solution and 80% with how well you understand who is your Early Adopter.

Anyway, drop me a line and I can guide how to start this up.

------
Lionga
If you solve (most apps don't do a good enough job) a real (most problems are
imaginery or tiny) problem, getting users is not hard.

~~~
fiftyacorn
Finding a real problem is hard

~~~
Lionga
I can tell you hundreds of real problems in a minute. It is just that millions
of people tried to find solutions and have failed. Thus they are extremly hard
problems. The things is finding a real problem that you can actually solve.

~~~
searchableguy
This has been my experience. My list of real problems shortens with every
filter I apply to it so that I can solve it. Turns out if I can see the
solution upfront and be able to solve it in a relatively short time period, so
can someone else.

~~~
rdtwo
You have to find some other competitive advantage why you can solve it better.
As a one man operation those advantages are very limited

------
pryelluw
How is this better than any social network/messaging app? Why shouls I install
it?

Also, the timing for social apps isnt great given the ongoing pandemic. You
might simply be suffering from bad timing

~~~
ryansam
I live in Houston, TX. And the area I'm targeting does not have many
restrictions on what you can do during the pandemic, it's almost the same as
before the pandemic. But if I were to live somewhere else this would probably
not be possible for me right now.

~~~
avree
You are actively putting people's lives at risk. Saying that users are
naturally irresponsible doesn't absolve you of responsibility.

------
adventured
Does everyone that is going to benefit from the system (receive notices, click
attend, etc) have to download an app? That will be an powerful hindrance.
People inherently don't want to download more apps, there is a lot of friction
in that process. Remove as much friction as you can there.

Narrow your action / marketing focus to get started. Perhaps see if you can
promote your app at destinations (to the co-benefit of the destination / place
if at all possible; tell the owner you'll market their business on your app in
exchange), rather than focusing on trying to get users outside of active
context. Go to where the activity is occurring, where people are doing the
thing you want them to use your app for (eg at a bar). If you're willing to
grind, that approach is probably your best bet (short of a huge, expensive ad
blitz). Where people are doing the thing in question, they will be most
receptive; outside of that, their receptivity plunges toward zero (unless
referred by a friend in the moment of / before / during an activity).

You better be a very social type, because you need to be out in the thick of
it. You need to be of the people, in it, pushing this thing to every human
that will listen at every location that will tolerate you. You need to be the
social manifestation of the result you want out of the app (since it's a very
social app by its nature), network user after user after user. This is an
example of doing something that doesn't scale, you're going to go out and sell
every initial new user on the app, where the app is going to live most of its
life (at destinations, events). After a while, the snowball momentum will take
over, if you're lucky, and you won't have to grind for every new user.

Messaging people is a dead-end in most cases. It's like a spam email or cold
call in how it lands in the brains of the people receiving it. Go to where the
action is, sell (promote) your thing in its proper environment.

~~~
ryansam
This seems like the best idea. I am friends with the owner of a high end bar
and I am hosting my own events giving free chili to anyone willing to talk to
about my app. I know many people there too. My other idea is asking my friends
I know to go to the bar and form different groups of people each time. I would
create the events ahead of time then show it to them when they all get there.

------
positivejam
I don't want to just spread negativity, but I see this so often on HN I feel
like it's mean _not_ to comment.

I would strongly recommend anyone considering developing an app to have a list
of potential customers before they write a single line of code. This is not a
revolutionary idea, but I still see it regularly ignored.

When you launch, you want to be able to send the announcement out to your
1,000/5,000/25,000 email subscribers/insta followers/podcast listeners. Simply
writing an app and submitting it to the app store is going to be painful.

------
crobertsbmw
You are right, getting users is hard. With a product like this, I think the
best way is to just ask people face to face if they would use it. And if they
say “no”, find out why not. You may not have the right product. Also, Can you
use it yourself, and invite friends to stuff using your app? If they get a few
invites from you and all the events are successful, then maybe your friends
will want to initiate their own events. Even if you had money, this “hit the
pavement” approach is pretty crucial to making sure you are selling the right
product.

~~~
quickthrower2
Also if they say yes get them to commit: install it and follow up a week later
how it went.

Then if they then say no - ask those no questions.

People can lie to get someone off their back but are too afraid to be direct.

------
somishere
As mentioned a group text goes a long way to resolving your problem. I'm going
to a bbq this arvo organised on whatsapp. But also your solution sounds like
it's trying to disrupt/recreate Apple/Google/MS calendar, not Facebook events.
I'd probably be looking into CalDAV or similar to ensure interopability with
whatever system your mates/users are already working with in their day-to-day
.. And then sprinkling some sugar to kickstart a slow-shuffle to your side of
the dance floor. Good luck!

------
itcrowd
Cool initiative. Is it maybe that given the pandemic, many people are more
wary of meeting in the first place? Your struggle might partially be explained
by that?

~~~
avree
Or maybe the other 30 commenters in this thread who've made similar apps have
something to do with the fact that most users are not interested in this type
of product.

------
azinman2
As many people have said this is a very crowded space littered with dead apps.
One of the biggest issues is that you ultimately will want some kind of
“comments” section because communication is central to planning, which at that
point you end up reinventing texting but as a worse interface as comments, and
then people will just resort to texting. It’s not clear why this is so much
better than a) texting, and b) posting this to a social network in the first
place. Covid certainly makes the timing poor, and even if you don’t have
restrictions now, that’s probably not a good thing and not something to
encourage.

Getting people to download a new app or a new anything at this point needs to
be really a fundamentally new product experience that is 10-100x better than
anything else you’re using. It’s easy to think about... if someone told you to
download an app to notify when you’re going to the bar, and everyone has to
download it, would you really change the social inertia from your existing
communication solutions just to post a bar notification? That’s a pretty tough
proposition.

~~~
ryansam
I'm am not encouraging people should go out. Just the people that already are
if they want they can use my app.

~~~
RL_Quine
That’s not a distinction.

~~~
ethanwillis
It's a distinction that Facebook seems to make since they still allow creating
events on their platform.

------
shahbaby
With every app you download

\- Another username/password and another potential security vulnerability

\- More complexity to your life as you have to familiarize yourself with
another app

\- More space on your phone

Maybe your app would be an improvement over current solutions but it's not
going to be a significant enough of a job to help you get that initial
critical mass of users.

------
armatav
This is like THE network effect app that just does not get traction in my
book, I built one just like it a few years ago.

Push a button, get people to hang out with you.

Problem is that people meet up using chat, that’s the core thing you have to
be better than. Better, faster, simpler or easier than
WhatsApp/Messenger/iMessage/SMS/FB Events/Instagram/Snapchat. Those things
have extreme network effects and you probably will not dislodge them, I would
aim somewhere else.

This exact app is detailed in one of NFX’s write ups as the “wrong” approach.

If you still want to try getting users, throw it on Product Hunt and see if it
takes. The only momentarily successful version of this was Down to Lunch - and
only because they harvested your entire contacts list and then messaged every
single person at once to get them using the app. They’re gone now. It was
simply easier to group chat your friends “yo movies?”.

~~~
ryansam
Simply I strongly believe I can do it. My friends and I have encountered this
problem over 100 times in the past two years and I just think there has to be
a better solution than texting or snapchat. This problem bugged my friends and
I so much there has to be a market of people who want something better.

~~~
yoyonamite
I feel like many iterations of coordinating events has been tried as evidenced
by different comments discussing previous solutions that have been built by
someone else or by themselves.

Why has this idea failed previously? How will your iteration be different?

I'm not naturally a social person but I did go through a phase where I was
more social and ended up organizing events. I never thought using texts,
whatsapp, etc. to be much of a hassle. I'm also close to a couple of friends
that are very social and I've seen them plan and coordinate events. It's never
seemed like a hassle and they've never mentioned it as a problem.

Solving your own problem is good advice, but the pitfall is that your own
problem may not be one that is shared by many people. I've had to learn this
lesson as well. I would run some of my early app ideas by my friends and their
response would basically be, "why would I want to do that?" I'm not saying
this idea will not work, but definitely talk to the people you're messaging
and find out what they think.

Best of luck.

------
sroussey
Invite friends to something using the app. If they don’t have the app, send an
email with the event invite and saying how they can install. Ideally you would
have web functionality as well, in case installing won’t happen.

------
wyum
I built a similar app for a client. It's called "Festi." It's on IOS and
Android with web app as well... Getting traction has definitely been
difficult, but is slowly growing.

------
quickthrower2
It’s tricky I imagine as you have to sell people on the idea then they have to
sell their friends on using it. WhatsApp is “good enough” for this task and
there are simple workarounds such as say “we meet at 7 at xyz” and whoever
can’t make it just doesn’t they come next time or join later.

I suggest finding the type of people or situation where this sort of thing is
a real headache for people by asking. The cool thing is you can just ask
random people at bars, coffee houses and parties and get some feedback. Read
“the mom test” to get an idea of how to approach this. Or in a nutshell don’t
tell them about your app at all, find out about their habits and issues around
arranging social events.

There is a good chance that this might lead to a pivot or just work on
something entirely different. So be prepared to jettison a sunk cost even
though it feels painful!

------
svatwork
I don't see the value proposition of this idea, because like others have said,
there are a lot of solutions to this problem like Facebook Events, WhatsApp
groups, and what not.

However, some acquaintances of mine have recently launched a (apparently
successful) messaging app for new university students to the university they
attended. Their users are in 80 countries and spend 30 minutes per day on the
app messaging each other. So I guess there are still niche cases.

------
Tade0
My friend is currently developing a todo app and interestingly enough is
getting some users even though things like Trello exist and it boils down to
two things:

-Dogfooding. He even organised his wedding using the damn thing.

-Talking face to face with people who are as dissatisfied with incumbent products as he was.

You've got to have a problem that really bothers someone in order to get them
to use your solution.

------
ric2b
The main time waster when trying to organize an event is choosing the
date/time, I don't see how this helps.

You'll set up an event, most people will say they can't make it and now you're
back to chatting about which time is the most suitable for the group, wasting
the same amount of time.

------
edoceo
Check out this book called "Lean Customer Development" by Cindy Alveraz (so¿).
Also, there's a talk called AARRR (metrics for pirates) that could be helpful.

Customer development is WAY MORE important than product development (as you've
just discovered)

------
paulsutter
Have a candid talk with the 23 people who didn't sign up, and listen
carefully. Avoid any persuasion, just listen to why they aren't interested.

Keep following this path, and you'll eventually have an app that people are
eager to use.

------
around_here
Mate, you’ve invented the calendar. Like outlook, Gmail, etc. all have this
functionality. It’s easy, has reminders, and doesn’t really need to to install
something you’re not already using on your phone/a new website to go to

------
Axsuul
You are better off building an integration on top of a platform that your
users are already on (e.g a Telegram bot). Also, I wouldn't call it a grind
yet–you only just started contacting them yesterday :)

------
dave_sid
Well done for building and releasing an app in the first place. Ignore the
negative commenters, they have probably never even bothered trying.

------
tootie
[https://first1000.substack.com/](https://first1000.substack.com/)

------
adamnemecek
You are in a crowded space.

------
justanothersys
Get TikTok - it worked for me!

------
summitsummit
> This page is blank lolz

~~~
ryansam
That is supposed to be a loading screen but I opted to work on more important
things haha.

------
the-dude
Who are your competitors?

~~~
xiaoxing
Sounds like Facebook to me... not a good sign.

------
switch11
I'll share a few points here. We've sold over 1 million paid apps. We've
gotten to 5 million+ app downloads in 4 additional markets. So the approach is
based on what worked and what didn't. However, we don't know how to get to 100
million or even 10 million users as we haven't done it yet. So keep that in
mind

Our approach is VERY extreme. So it depends on whether you have the resources
and persistence to do it

A) The Market Always Wins/Product Market Fit Always Wins

So every possible project you could do, its success will be determined
PRIMARILY by whether the market wants your product or not

Everything else doesn't matter

B) So your approach should NOT be

I have a problem. I solved it for myself by building this app. How do I get
users for it

It should be

What is a LARGE market which has a strong need that is UNSERVED

completely forget yourself and focus 100% on users who are dying for a product

In your post and responses there is a massive amount of me-centrism i.e. I'm
building, I'm trying, I propose, I'm trying, I made, I contacted. I was
hoping. I was wondering. I messaged. I was wondering, I could really use

Where is - Customer needs. Customer demands. Team aims. Do you have a team? or
you did it all yourself? Where is your designer and tester? even if you did
all the coding yourself?

 __ __ __ __ __ __

C) If you build the right product, then getting users is automatic

List of 82 people is around 100 times smaller than it needs to be. Probably
1,000 times smaller. You can't derive any worthwhile data from this

1 out of 24. That's too small a sample size

At best, it gives us no information

At worst, it tells us that out of those 24 people only 1 cared about the
product enough to sign up

These are such small data points that you can't learn anything from them

 __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __

D) Yes, Getting Users is Hard

However, you can make it easier by making something people want and which has
little to no competition

The old saying - Be First, Be Best, or Have the Most Money

So, are you the first? No, not really

The Best? depends on how good your app and overall service is

Have the most money? Don't know but would be surprised if you were as your
marketing plan seems to be 'tell my friends'

 __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __*

E) Another VERY BIG mistake that lots of creators like developers, artists,
musicians, etc make is

thinking their friends and family will boost them

For every 1 musician whose friends and family are going to buy 100 albums and
give them a tiny boost at the start, there are 999 musicians whose friends and
family won't

That is just not a viable business strategy, not even at the start

 __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __

F) You should be going where your customers are. some forum where people are
looking for a way to do quick events

such as knitting groups that are frustrated they can't meet up, or runner
groups or bingo or book clubs

Find where they are and ask them to test your product

 __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __*

G) I think there is superb value in the people who are telling you that you
got some painful feedback right at the beginning, before you had invested half
a million and 4 years of your life

Take that feedback to heart

Put this product on hold. You're launching it during a pandemic. It's
LITERALLY the worst time to test out such a product

Plus, keep in mind that - YES, you are inviting your users to get Coronoavirus
and die or infect their loved ones and they die

This is a SHOCKING amount of lack of consideration for your users

 __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __

Really, I wrote this for other people. Not for you. You can still benefit from
it

Market Always Wins

Have Consideration for the well being of your users. A few companies that
don't do that have become very big. However, those are exceptions. Most
companies that are very successful provide lots of value to their users and
care about their users' well being

------
Jugurtha
Some things to think about - not necessarily true, but just a brain dump:

> _I 'm building a mobile app to create and share social events with your
> friends. A social event would be going to the bar, house party, or meeting
> up for coffee. You can fill out a simple form (event name, description,
> date, time) and post to a feed for your friends to see. Your friends can
> notify you they're going by pressing the "attend" button._

Have you tried selecting people you want to hang out with at a bar and sending
a text message to them that says "Hey, we're going to bar X at 5 if you want
to tag along" to validate the concept.

> _Now I 'm trying to get my first users. Yesterday was my first day. I made a
> spreadsheet of everyone I can message that live in my target area. My list
> is 82 people. Yesterday I contacted 24 people and got one person to sign up,
> I was hoping to get five. But most of the people I messaged didn't even
> respond._

Instead of contacting the 24 people to ask them to sign up, tell them you're
going to have coffee at place X. Basically, use the spreadsheet as your app
and validate the concept.

Generally speaking, if people are not coming _for_ you, they're coming for
someone else: the crazy guy, the wicked smart girl, the hot one, or the one
who's always funnier when drunk. If you're none of those, your job is to set
it up and do a "casting" of people who go well together, and do so _in a
certain context_.

Someone will invite you and you'll say "I don't know...". They'll say "X and Y
will be there, too" and that may change your mind because X knows more than
anyone on some esoteric subject you love, and Y is just so much fun to hang
out with.

Sooo... Maybe you want to focus on the Person/Venue/Clique fit and the
application automatically invites the _right_ people when you're going to the
_right_ venue. The right people for the right venue, but also the right people
who gel together in that venue. I wouldn't invite Y to a bar because he
doesn't hold his liquor and acts douchey, so the application embeds that in
its graph. See Person/Venue/Clique fit below.

\- There maybe an asymmetry in that people are more interested to know what
you're doing than to let you know what they're doing. Unless there is a vanity
component in there.

\- Is it a broadcast or personal invites? If it is a broadcast, maybe I don't
know how you feel about me and feel I'd bother if I came. Me: "Hey! I saw you
beaconed earlier". You: "Uhmm.. Sure!".

\- Platform fragmentation: how is your beacon broadcasting? Do I have to have
the app installed to know where you are, or does it broadcast to Instagram,
add a WhatsApp status, post something on Facebook? or text message [supposing
it's invite/private] and Twitter or similar if it's not.

\- Maybe there's "diffusion of resposibility" going on. If you invite me
personally, I'll feel much more compelled than if I see it on a broadcast
because I might think surely other people might join you and you'll be fine.
If everyone has that thought, nobody will show up.

\- Person/Venue/Clique Fit: Person A is cool with Person B and Person C,
however, Person A would hangout with Person B in venue Y, but not with Person
C. Person A would also hangout with Person C in venue Z, but not necessarily
with Person B. It can be for a variety of reasons: perception, image,
precedents, etc. Regulars Person A meets in a venue might not appreciate
Person B for example. Usually, when a person goes to a venue, there's a small
set of people they want to be with at that venue.

\- People might have "spots" they don't want other people to joing them at.

~~~
ryansam
These are a lot of the challenges I know I'm going to have to figure out. I'm
screenshotting this because it's actually a really good explanation of what I
need to be working on. I just launched and I couldn't cover all these problems
right away in my MVP, but I plan to cover all of them in the future. Thanks!

~~~
Jugurtha
You don't need to cover all of these problems either in MVP or later.

What is the "dance" that leads to a great "event"? Broadcasting location is a
feature of all services. Broadcasting the right event to the right people is
something that is not a feature of any as far as I can tell.

So, what is the social dance? Doesn't it go like "I'm going to bar X, who
shall I call/text? If I text Y, then I won't text X because they get into
heated debates and derail the evening. Plus, Y is usually busy this time of
day". Or you're with someone "Let's have a drink. [other person]: this is Z's
neighborhood, mind if I text him to tag along? He's cool[you don't know Z, but
your friend vouches for him]"

Isn't paying attention to these details that leads to a good event?

The event (vibe, time, place, optional description, people) must fit. And then
you can tweak these levers: if I set a vibe and I don't care about time and
place, which people will I invite?

If I set a list of people, which combinations of vibe, time, and place would
be good?

What am I optimizing for? Good time, or number of "attendees"? Is it destined
for a context where I _know_ the attendees, or am I just throwing a big party
and everyone is welcome, _as long as they are in the circle of people I
trust_.

This needs to be _super, super simple to set up_. As simple as texting
someone.

Maybe a simple use case is for events that are happening _right now_ , then
refine to scheduled events. Cold start:

I click on the app. I enter a description "Going for drinks at Foo" in the
field. The app displays list of contacts to invite. I check three or four. Hit
send. It sends them a text message (they don't need to have the app) with a
signature "Sent with Social Dance" or "Sent with Inner Circle", or let's be
douchey "Sent with innrcl".

What the hell is Social Dance?

The application then remembers that context (vibe, time of day, "drinks", Foo
[place], people you invited, location) for subsequent recommendations.

You train your application like that so it'll recommend you set up events.

Later, you can have a map with different possibilities "Watch tonight's game
at the Foo Bar" or "Listen to X playing live at Tak the Bar". Click, it'll
prefill a list of people to invite. You check it, if it looks good, you go for
it.

