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Comment by mattmaroon | Hacker News Reader

For now I'd focus 100% on improving the product. You're building a social network of sorts, which means the network effect is your big hurdle. You're in a land rush. Forget about anything other than winning that land rush right now. Build a network so populous and engaged that even if someone builds a better site (and if your growth keeps going, they will) it won't matter.

If the server bill gets too high, toss in the least amount of Adwords you can to pay for it. Or just ask your users to donate. Or come up with some premium features that are just compelling enough to keep the lights on. Or raise money from angels. Again, keep the lights on while you improve the product and grow your userbase.

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This is probably the correct answer (focus 100% on improving the product).

The product is at a state where people like the idea of it so they sign up en masse -- but I'm not sure the site lives up to the expectation yet.

Focus on engagement. Sign ups are almost meaningless if the users bounce and never return. The reason Facebook is so amazing is not just that they have a billion users, it's that they have 80% of them checking the site 5x per week (or whatever).

See how many users you can get into the habit of coming back to your site on a regular basis. That's the number that ultimately will drive everything: revenue, long term network effects, etc.

BTW, there's no reason in hell it should cost you $2500/mo already. Obviously you can afford it to some extent but that's just a waste of money. You should be able to run it for < $500/mo easily.

I hear you regarding user engagement.

However when I first built the site, I envisioned more of a LinkedIn-type thing where engagement is relatively low but the value is in the database.

In other words, I don't use LinkedIn very often. But when I need to, it's a godsend (or at least, better than anything else that does what it does.)

Interesting.

i would say, don't let what you envisioned the product to be hamper its' evolution.

'Engagement' is overrated. Some sites , e.g Google and Wikipedia probably have super high bounce rates, because they solve your problem on the first page you see. What if people start entering his site mainly from band pages, get all the necessary info and leave? That wouldn't be a bad thing for users.

Engagement doesn't mean time on site. Millions of people check Reddit 10x per day for <5 minutes per visit. That's a great kind of engagement.

Actually, that would be a bad thing for his site. If he gets one-time visitors, he will need to keep growing to offset the churn rate. That means he'll probably need to rely a lot on search engine traffic, and for the viral growth to continue. If both go away, his site is dead.

Ask them what they expect - and see if you can and want to match their needs. Profit will come natural.

I think it is sad that this is probably the correct answer.

I would love to refute it and say "no, you need to monetize it, don't just get users and hope". However, recent history has shown that gaining traction and losing money every month is enough to earn yourself a heavy payout later.

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