Ask HN: Just launched. Zero users. No clue how to market. Resource suggestions? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Just launched. Zero users. No clue how to market. Resource suggestions?

19 pointsm52go28 comments

I'm individually messaging folks on reddit who've indicated interest, or who are very likely to be interested. I'm following and interacting with relevant industry folks on Twitter. I'm going to begin reaching out to bloggers soon.

But I'm not getting anywhere and I feel clueless. To the point it feels more productive just going back to developing app features for my non-existent user-base.

Any courses, books, or resources with practical, idiot-level advice?

It's a consumer-focused app related to books.

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I'll throw this out there because you might consider it relevant.

I recently learned that Abe HomeBase is pretty much the de facto standard book inventory software out there. It seems there's little motivation to search for other platforms because you have to use HomeBase to get listed in Abe (as I understand).

I learned all of this when a friend was showing me HomeBase at the bookshop he worked at... and in particular its mind-numbingly slow live search system.

Take Google autocomplete, make it blocking/non-asynchronous (it freezes while it gets your result), and slow it down so EACH KEYPRESS takes FIVE SECONDS to acknowledge. That's HomeBase search.

I have no idea how you would go about fixing this, but I thought I might mention it in case this direction sounds interesting. I'm not sure, but I get the impression this is one of those areas with no movement or competition, and it just needs someone with a bit of motivation to come along and turn it upside down.

If you like I can put you in touch with my friend; he's very technically minded, so you could very likely get a lot of in-depth info about how the program works and what needs to be done to replace it.

You should check out the Growth Hacking class at onemonth.com - I have taken the class and totally love it. It walks you through a full product launch from building a landing page, writing perfect copy to selling. Lots of great advice in there but it does cost $49 per month (and one month is honestly all you need). Also check out this startup community: https://startups.blnkk.com Lots of fellow founders sharing new products and getting feedback from the community.

Thanks! This is precisely the sort of thing I'm looking for.

+1 for that course, great primer on the subject.

Ideas besides the already mentioned forums and other online places:

Go to a bookstore and talk to the owner to see if they would promote your software (if it adds value to the bookstore)

Go to a library and talk to potential users about the idea, get some to test the app and give feedback (buy them coffee/donuts as a thank)

Talk to the librarians, they probably know your user base, ask them how to promote the sw.

Go to a coffee shop and talk to those sitting and reading books - tell them about the app and get feedback.

Submit as show HN Submit to product hunt Submit to all the beta lists out there if it is in beta

In order to get through traction, you have to pass few tests on product/market fit Do you have 1 customer? Is she happy with your product? If not, iterate Do you have 10 customers? Are they happy? if not, iterate Do you have 100, 1000 customers? Are they happy? Iterate anyway

How to get to 1 customer? Go out of your online world into real world and talk to real people. Do user studies, focus groups, stand on streets or coffee shops to show your product. This will bring you to P/M fit

I would advise not to iterate based off a single customer. Despite being a customer, I think there is still too great a chance that she isn't in the startup's target market. This goes 10x if the customer isn't a paying customer.

Otherwise, great advice.

Sure, but single customer idea is mostly to give an idea of how to approach this problem. You are right about subjectively 1 customer should not determine the direction of product. Mostly don't ask for feedback to your closest friends and family

Do as much bottom-up research as you can at this point. Go to every single bookstore in your area and talk to the potential customers. If you can get an owner to let you have a stand at a bookstore for a couple days - the personal interaction will help a lot. Definitely use the feedback to iterate (not only based on 1 user, but try to identify trends in what they tell you). Go out there and set a goal to have 30users by next week.

Would this be Bookshop Crawl?

Edit: Looks like it is. You could go asking for feedback on one of the popular indie book forums (assuming there is such a thing).

Marketing, at its most fundamental level, is simply placing yourself where your target demographic is, and then socializing with them.

Don't think too much about it.

Where do they hang out, and why do they hang out there - what brings them there other than like-minded individuals?

Remember: simple questions often are best answered with simple answers.

Good luck! :D

Thank you sir. I'll also be visiting/engaging B&M bookshops. It's online marketing that seems less straightforward.

I'm assuming you have an interest in indie bookshops. Where do you go online to talk about them? Where do your likeminded friends go online?

It's more about the books one finds at bookshops. Reddit and YouTube are destinations for some.

Personally I don't really contribute to either...visiting a bookshop for me is more of an independent, spiritual type of activity similar to the way many people think of gardening.

Still, the passion expressed for browsing independent bookshops through articles, social media, and other projects is immense.

I know I'm hitting an area dear to many...question is if I have the right angle.

Anyway, not trying to make this a personal consulting session, but it's an interesting niche that I expect will have its own unique pitfalls and challenges in reaching customers...just like any other!

First, check your core hypotheses.

> Still, the passion expressed for browsing independent bookshops through articles, social media, and other projects is immense. > I know I'm hitting an area dear to many...question is if I have the right angle.

1. How do you know that? For example. I love custom made chess pieces. I'd never buy (or use) an app to browse different chess boards/pieces etc. I need to touch them, talk to a person that made them, etc.

2. Can you find 3 people who want this (i.e. give you money) ?

If yes: What do they say? Why do they want(love?) this app? Where did you find them? How many others like them are out there?

If no: Ask them why they don't like it.

Anyway, if you want to talk more about it contact me. I'd love to help.

If you can't handle rejection, then building a startup is not for you.

Imagine you are the guy someone is trying to peddle something onto you that you seem vaguely interested in and then imagine telling that guy "thanks but not now". This is what you'll hear/get a lot, so you must deal with that first.

Secondly, you need to make sure that what you are building is out there and reaching the people who really need it.

Social media is great to get things going, but the person you want to target is the one who goes to a search engine and types:

I need XYZ to do something and your result should pop up somewhere there.

I'm not scared of rejection. I've worked in sales. I expect it. I need it. But I'm not getting any now. So in a sense, I'm wondering how to get more.

If you have a mobile app I would highly suggest a small Facebook ad budget for cost per install ads. Make a list of all of the potential interests your prospects have them target them individually. Think of it as an investment in market research rather than pure acquisition. Treat those customers great, ask for referrals and testimonies. Find what they love about your app and focus your landing page on that.

Spend some time reading Moz.org blogs.

And treat it like a job. These things don't just happen, they take consistent input with often limited feedback. Good luck!

> idiot-level advice?

Check how Tim Ferriss marketed his book. You'll likely find some applications for your situation. http://fourhourworkweek.com/2011/03/10/12-lessons-learned-wh...

Go to a book store. Find your first customer. Buy him/her some coffee and learn from his/her experience. Improve your product based on their feedback. Go to a book store...

Customer development. Why are you doing product development, without any customer development first? Google: Steve Blank

Posting a link in this thread would be a good start :-)

why don't you post a link to check it out??

That will happen soon. I just want some more real feedback from real people first.

Which I guess sounds paradoxical but it seems all the product posts on here are already so refined.

why not share your app as Show HN?

How to Promote Your Business on the Internet

http://www.warplife.com/tips/webmaster/website-promotion.htm...

White Hat Search Engine Optimization

http://www.warplife.com/tips/webmaster/search-engine-optimiz...

Painless Serch Engine Site Submission

http://www.warplife.com/tips/webmaster/site-submission.html

Analyze your webserver log files. I use analog but it has not been maintained in years, doubtlessly there are better tools by now.

Avail yourself of Bing and Google Webmaster Tools, also Alexa. Use http://www.google.com/trends/ to find keywords to target. Note the geographic distribution.

I havent written anything yet about pay per click ads like AdWords but I intend to. The key is to bid on keywords that only a paying customer is likelely to search for. I paid $300.00 per month for "software consultant" and "software consulting" with nary an inquiry, but got a signed contract for $30,000.00 after paying ten cents apiece for but two clicks by bidding on a keyword that I will never tell anyone because I might need to use it again.

You might at first expect that its best to write articles on the general topic of books. While there is some benefit to that my experience is that its best to diversify your topics.

The public's interest in the topic of the day varies widely. For example just before Thanksgiving Americans search the web for "turkey stuffing recipe". I expect Canadians do so as well but in early October.

In inlink from a book-related site will be the most relevant, but some other topic may produce more inlinks.

This is a good idea for a little bit later. First you need to understand what to write about. What are the keywords, what are they looking for, etc.

While I mostly agree it is hard to determine what to write about until you have written something and it has been posted long enough that it yields some search engine referrals.

To take a wild guess is better than not posting anything at all.

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