7 ms·

How Jason Cohen Built And Sold Smart Bear Software

29 points by dshah 17y ago

vaksel 17y ago
I posted this on the other site, but I figure I might as well copy paste my comment(since it took a few minutes to put the data together): I'm not sure, but I think startups.com is beating answers.onstartups.com onstartups has an alexa rank of 27.5K, but that's shared with Dharmesh's actual onstartups blog. startups.com has an alexa rank of 29.5K, and that's all them. And yeah I know alexa rank is worthless, but it's a useful indicator when it comes to comparing 2 sites. then we have users: startups.com has 2055 users. answers.onstartups.com has 1687 then we have # of questions, onstartups has 928, startups.com has 3943. then you have page rank, startups.com has PR of 5, onstartups.com has PR of 0. and finally you have level of activity: onstartups: 29 questions updated in the last 24 hours(either asked or answered) startups.com: 29 questions updated in the last 5 hours So by every metric onstartups is getting creamed. I think this is a perfect example of what Jason talked about on the video, since both Dharmesh and Jason already made their bucks, they don't really care whether the site sinks or swims. While for startups.com guys, they see it as their opportunity to make it a big cash cow, so they try to go create content to make it grow as fast as possible. With my site(i use the same platform), I'm going for a mix of both. Build up content to drive traffic, but try to focus on quality, so that the traffic that does come gets a positive experience and just might register. This is why every question gets thoroughly researched and answered. Sure it's slower than spamming the crap out of my site with dumbass fake questions like startups.com guys...but at least I don't have 1246 unanswered questions on my site. Well to be completely honest, I do spam my site a little with fake questions. But that's because as a brand new site, there is really not that much traffic yet, and I don't want my users who like answering questions to get bored.
- smartbear 17y ago
  However if you were watching closely, as we are, you'd discover that most of the numbers you site are fake. For example, they invented "users" who aren't real people. You can tell because there are 100 users with the same IP address. Another example: Startups.com has 1247 unanswered questions -- 30%. Answers.onstartups.com has only 29 -- a mere 3%. Which one of these communities appears to be REAL? As a final example, if you look at the actual questions on the two sites, you'll see for yourself that one seems to be coming from real entrepreneurs with real issues, and the other doesn't. Although I don't begrudge you creating fake questions, I'd like to point out that we didn't have to do that. It's all real. So in the end, are you really comfortable saying that OnStartups is "getting creamed?" Is having a high-quality, beloved site worse than having a site with "stats" and "users" which are completely fake? If so, you must also think that those spammy websites created for Google Juice by plagerizing real websites are also "creaming" those real sites, because by every metric they're winning -- search rank, compete.com, whatever. At the end of the day, which site do you think will last? Which one will generate the most profit? I say "profit" because also keep in mind they bought the "startups.com" domain for 6 figures. Have to make up that money (plus whatever else they've spent) before the site is profitable.
  - vaksel 17y ago
    oh yeah I know... a while back if you looked back all their top users had the same gravatar(gravatars are pretty random, but they do assign one per ip)...+ they changed their community bot's name to Dennis Rodman, so that people woudln't know that the site was dead when the front page had nothing but "Community" on it. Hey I gave the 1246 # :P...and yeah I know what you mean, my site has like 5-10 unanswered questions out of the ~1000 I have now. I think part of that is targetting...they seem to be more mainstream oriented. So they have your local corner store owner asking questions, while onstartups is more web tech oriented. All new communities astro turf...reddit guys submitted stories and posted in comments between each other for example. You can't launch a community without doing that. Noone wants to go to an empty restaurant. Actually the fact that you don't, is a strike against you in my book...it just shows that you guys just don't care about the site, and are pretty much letting it sink or swim on it's own. I used your site early on, but then I got bored because it took a whole day to see 2-3 new questions. Same goes for asking, I asked a question a while back about launching...and I didn't get a response for more than 12 hours...in the middle of the day. So you have a site where there are no questions, and no answers, gives people no reason to stick around. Comfortable? no...but what metric would you use that says that you are doing better? Pretty much the only metric I can see is that you have higher quality users. Which doesn't really mean much, when it takes 12 hours to answer a simple question. Yes it's nice to have a high-quality beloved site...but that doesn't count for much, when the site appears to be dead. No those "spammy sites" aren't creaming real sites...for 99.99% of entries, the real site will always show up first. At the end of the day? I think both of you will last, but startups.com will have better metrics(more users, more traffic, more revenue). Same goes for profit, if startups.com becomes THE place for startups, will rank high for every startups related question on Google...then even that 6 figure investment won't matter. I wish all the luck to you guys, but at this rate, you'll be a Web Developer Forum to their Facebook
    - smartbear 17y ago
      I see what you mean about the targeting, and I do agree with you on that. And I agree with your general argument that their techniques might put them into the driver's seat generally. I see what you mean about not getting a response quickly too. That's not a problem anymore from what I see, but of course you're right about bootstrapping at the beginning. However, the response from our users has been that their questions at startups.com just don't get useful answers, whereas the ones on answers.onstartups.com get really good, detailed, useful answers. Again, I think you and we have different definitions of what's "successful." It sounds like you're still thinking about it in terms of #users, #traffic, and revenue, but that's NOT OUR GOAL. Our goal is to create a genuinely wonderful community of entrepreneurs who get quality answers to questions from real people whom they trust. Those take time to grow and by definition it means not getting 100k users overnight. For us, one person who gets one insightful answer to an important question is better than 100 people with 100 crappy answers. But that's just us!
- kgc 17y ago
  Out of curiosity, what is the name of this Q&A platform that is being used across these sites?
  - vaksel 17y ago
    Stack Exchange http://stackexchange.com/ http://stackexchange.com/

29 points by dshah 17y ago

I posted this on the other site, but I figure I might as well copy paste my comment(since it took a few minutes to put the data together): I'm not sure, but I think startups.com is beating answers.onstartups.com onstartups has an alexa rank of 27.5K, but that's shared with Dharmesh's actual onstartups blog. startups.com has an alexa rank of 29.5K, and that's all them. And yeah I know alexa rank is worthless, but it's a useful indicator when it comes to comparing 2 sites. then we have users: startups.com has 2055 users. answers.onstartups.com has 1687 then we have # of questions, onstartups has 928, startups.com has 3943. then you have page rank, startups.com has PR of 5, onstartups.com has PR of 0. and finally you have level of activity: onstartups: 29 questions updated in the last 24 hours(either asked or answered) startups.com: 29 questions updated in the last 5 hours So by every metric onstartups is getting creamed. I think this is a perfect example of what Jason talked about on the video, since both Dharmesh and Jason already made their bucks, they don't really care whether the site sinks or swims. While for startups.com guys, they see it as their opportunity to make it a big cash cow, so they try to go create content to make it grow as fast as possible. With my site(i use the same platform), I'm going for a mix of both. Build up content to drive traffic, but try to focus on quality, so that the traffic that does come gets a positive experience and just might register. This is why every question gets thoroughly researched and answered. Sure it's slower than spamming the crap out of my site with dumbass fake questions like startups.com guys...but at least I don't have 1246 unanswered questions on my site. Well to be completely honest, I do spam my site a little with fake questions. But that's because as a brand new site, there is really not that much traffic yet, and I don't want my users who like answering questions to get bored.

smartbear 17y ago
However if you were watching closely, as we are, you'd discover that most of the numbers you site are fake. For example, they invented "users" who aren't real people. You can tell because there are 100 users with the same IP address. Another example: Startups.com has 1247 unanswered questions -- 30%. Answers.onstartups.com has only 29 -- a mere 3%. Which one of these communities appears to be REAL? As a final example, if you look at the actual questions on the two sites, you'll see for yourself that one seems to be coming from real entrepreneurs with real issues, and the other doesn't. Although I don't begrudge you creating fake questions, I'd like to point out that we didn't have to do that. It's all real. So in the end, are you really comfortable saying that OnStartups is "getting creamed?" Is having a high-quality, beloved site worse than having a site with "stats" and "users" which are completely fake? If so, you must also think that those spammy websites created for Google Juice by plagerizing real websites are also "creaming" those real sites, because by every metric they're winning -- search rank, compete.com, whatever. At the end of the day, which site do you think will last? Which one will generate the most profit? I say "profit" because also keep in mind they bought the "startups.com" domain for 6 figures. Have to make up that money (plus whatever else they've spent) before the site is profitable.
- vaksel 17y ago
  oh yeah I know... a while back if you looked back all their top users had the same gravatar(gravatars are pretty random, but they do assign one per ip)...+ they changed their community bot's name to Dennis Rodman, so that people woudln't know that the site was dead when the front page had nothing but "Community" on it. Hey I gave the 1246 # :P...and yeah I know what you mean, my site has like 5-10 unanswered questions out of the ~1000 I have now. I think part of that is targetting...they seem to be more mainstream oriented. So they have your local corner store owner asking questions, while onstartups is more web tech oriented. All new communities astro turf...reddit guys submitted stories and posted in comments between each other for example. You can't launch a community without doing that. Noone wants to go to an empty restaurant. Actually the fact that you don't, is a strike against you in my book...it just shows that you guys just don't care about the site, and are pretty much letting it sink or swim on it's own. I used your site early on, but then I got bored because it took a whole day to see 2-3 new questions. Same goes for asking, I asked a question a while back about launching...and I didn't get a response for more than 12 hours...in the middle of the day. So you have a site where there are no questions, and no answers, gives people no reason to stick around. Comfortable? no...but what metric would you use that says that you are doing better? Pretty much the only metric I can see is that you have higher quality users. Which doesn't really mean much, when it takes 12 hours to answer a simple question. Yes it's nice to have a high-quality beloved site...but that doesn't count for much, when the site appears to be dead. No those "spammy sites" aren't creaming real sites...for 99.99% of entries, the real site will always show up first. At the end of the day? I think both of you will last, but startups.com will have better metrics(more users, more traffic, more revenue). Same goes for profit, if startups.com becomes THE place for startups, will rank high for every startups related question on Google...then even that 6 figure investment won't matter. I wish all the luck to you guys, but at this rate, you'll be a Web Developer Forum to their Facebook
  - smartbear 17y ago
    I see what you mean about the targeting, and I do agree with you on that. And I agree with your general argument that their techniques might put them into the driver's seat generally. I see what you mean about not getting a response quickly too. That's not a problem anymore from what I see, but of course you're right about bootstrapping at the beginning. However, the response from our users has been that their questions at startups.com just don't get useful answers, whereas the ones on answers.onstartups.com get really good, detailed, useful answers. Again, I think you and we have different definitions of what's "successful." It sounds like you're still thinking about it in terms of #users, #traffic, and revenue, but that's NOT OUR GOAL. Our goal is to create a genuinely wonderful community of entrepreneurs who get quality answers to questions from real people whom they trust. Those take time to grow and by definition it means not getting 100k users overnight. For us, one person who gets one insightful answer to an important question is better than 100 people with 100 crappy answers. But that's just us!
kgc 17y ago
Out of curiosity, what is the name of this Q&A platform that is being used across these sites?
- vaksel 17y ago
  Stack Exchange http://stackexchange.com/ http://stackexchange.com/