Ask HN: Would you use a website to help other startups with sales?

[gintas]

I am thinking about putting up a website for startups that would help sales by getting referrals from other startups.

The basis for the idea is threefold:

1. There is a lot of goodwill in the startup world (recent Offer HN posts are evidence). Many startup people I know would go out of their way to help their peers as long as they are not direct competitors.

2. Startup founders have a lot of human capital: they know and on a daily basis talk to many people who are potential clients not just for their own companies, but for their peers as well.

3. The most complicated part of business for most startups is sales (customer acquisition).

The idea is to put up a website where one could register a startup, provide basic information: name, product description (15-second pitch), target group. Startups with matching target groups would be informed about each other (I am thinking regular emails), and with some luck and good will would refer potential customers to each other.

Yeah, the idea is hopelessly naive, but maybe it could just work out?

[lutescen]

Funny you should mention that. First private beta of my site that does fairly much what you described going live tomorrow.

It is for all businesses though, not just startups.

I have been working on this one for about 4 months (from idea to build)

It would be great to have some more people to try it out in a week or 2 if you are interested?

[gintas → lutescen]

Sure, throw a link my way (see http://blog.miliauskas.lt for contact info).

[fooandbarify]

Cool. Sort of like a more detailed link swap... startups could offer discount packages with each other, offer each other as up-sells, etc. For certain markets I think it would work really, really well.

When I'm ready to ship my next project, I would definitely use a site like this if it existed.

[gintas → fooandbarify]

Hmm, what would those markets be in your opinion? Perhaps it's worth targeting a niche narrower than startups.

[fooandbarify → gintas]

I think it would be hard to narrow it down further - the problem has more to do with the fact that hackers don't want to bother with marketing and/or negotiating deals, myself included. I mean, the markets that would work are anything large enough to have several startups operating within it without being in competition with each other, but like I said - the problem is a bit more complicated than that. (I'm working on a book that is somewhat related to all of this, but I keep getting distracted with making things.)

If you really wanted it to work: In my opinion the best way for something like this to gain traction would be to start small and make it exclusive. Make yourself the gatekeeper to a startup marketing nirvana rather than driving a race to the bottom. Play matchmaker with hot startups (taking a commission of course) - perhaps one of the niche app hosts want to pair up with a popular new domain name generator, or maybe you can find the next set of games to sell as a bundle. It sounds like a lot of work (and I'm sure that it would be) but the fact is that startups already have too many ways to find each other - a much more valuable proposition is someone willing to do the legwork. If you are able to generate enough interest in what you're doing, automating it and making it public might become an option in the future.

tl;dr I don't think hackers understand the value of what you're suggesting, even though I think it's valuable. Create demand and prove your method first.

[SupremumLimit]

Sounds like an online version of BNI (http://www.bni.com/). Would it work on a completely altruistic basis though? With BNI you at least get some real world networking at the meetings.

[lutescen → SupremumLimit]

Orignally I thought of this, having it as an online referral based system, but it wasn't going to work. Referrals of clients is too time consuming and requires large amounts of trust before sending clients over to someone.

I went down the path of thinking of each relationship as a joint venture.

[gintas → SupremumLimit]

Yeah, BNI seems similar in idea, but I had my eyes on small, new companies in particular, as they have the most to gain from small-scale, inidvidual referrals. The larger ones tend to do marketing, or they already have a reputation, so it's easier for them to find new clients.