Some notes from the Sun’s fun Startup Camp, held May 4 and 5 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco.
So, how do you get your first 50,000 users on your consumer-facing Website - and get past the ‘cold start’, without paying a lot of money for advertising? Here’s the theory.
So let’s say you have a website that you feel is ready to share with the world, with zero (0) users.
The basics:
1. The first milestone is to get to 100 real, engaged users. It’s all about engagement- time spent on the site, repeat visits, and a good user experience (say 8 out of 10 on a satisfaction scale).
You can do a lot of testing/iteration/improvement with just 100 users. So email your friends, tell them to pass the email on. If you are having trouble even finding 100 users (let’s say you just don’t want to spam all your friends), then try Google AdWords. See #2 below.
What’s the goal at this point? The goal is to make sure that your product either looks good, or works good. If it satisfies either criteria, then it has a chance of catching on in the market. It may be unlikely that you’ll have satisfy both criteria in a new application (but if you do - kudos and keep on going).
2. Once you have a reasonable product (aka it looks good, or works good), the next step is to ramp up traffic. There are a few ways to do this:
- Use Google Adwords. Search is the second most common activity on the Internet (after email) and comprises about 40% of Internet advertising revenue. This means that using search methods (Adwords or SEO) to drive traffic is a good idea, even if it means paying a little money.
The great thing about Google Adwords is that you can measure and A/B test landing pages, and improve copy, graphics, etc. So you can iterate and discover what works and what doesn’t.
So buy some traffic from Google, measure conversions, and hopefully your user base will start to increase. At the least, you’ll learn how to make your application better.
- Use SEO techniques to improve your position on search results.
2.1 Use viral marketing techniques & build viral loops into your application. This is something that social networking (Facebook/OpenSocial) apps typically do. For more about viral marketing and loops, read this terrific blog: Andrew Chen’s Futuristic play
. Viral techniques allow you to acquire users at very little cost, assuming that you have designed things well.
3. Track metrics, A/B test, and iterate.
Your site can definitely be improved. Use Google Analytics to see how your site is doing. Make changes to improve conversion rates, reduce bounce rates, and drive traffic to the pages you want people to go to. Use A/B testing to improve copy and graphics.
4. Reach out to people by email. Consider a email service like ConstantContact.
4.1 Reach out to people even after they have registered on your site. For example, if they haven’t come back to visit the site in a week after registering, send them a reminder email.
5. Participate in the blogosphere. Read and leave comments on other blogs, and write your own.
6. Partner with other startup companies to drive awareness of each other. Together we stand!
Some other ideas:
7. Consider using an affiliate marketing service, like CommissionJunction .
8. Use social engineering with a time limit to entice users to sign up. For example, ‘the first 25 users to sign up in the next week’ will be featured on our home page.
9. Consider a giveaway, for example, some hot gadget that doesn’t cost a lot, like a iPhone, tied to an email promotion.
10. Paying more money - PR or marketing consultants or trade shows. Trade shows can be well worth it, if you are starting out.
So, you’ve reached 100 users. What’s next?
Consistently track and analyze page views, unique visitors, time spent on site, referral sources, bounce rate, and registered users - so you can spot trends and trouble, and either continue what you’re doing or change course quickly.
So The next milestones are:
1. Get to 1,000 registered users. If you can’t get here in a reasonable amount of time after launching, you may want to consider changing what your consumer-facing site is about.
2. Get to 10,000 registered users. No big celebration here - just keep on going. Hopefully you’re getting that major hockey stick in terms of website traffic… (hello TechCrunch).
3. Get to 50,000 registered users. Once you get to this number, all sorts of wonderful network effect things happen, and if you can keep it going, you’ll be on your way. Congratulations on a nice start.
This post is by no means complete. Any other Startup Camp attendees, please let me know if I’ve left obvious stuff out. Gotta go to sleep now.
PS Many thanks to Mary T. from Foldier , a cool online file-sharing service, and Lee from TheWorldIs , a social network with lots of nice pictures - for their participation and comments.