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How We Grew a SaaS Company To 4M Users

61 points by funkyy 11y ago

cenal 11y ago
tl;dr = Google at first approved of the tactic these guys used then suddenly without warning changed their search algorithm and penalized these guys. Lesson, don't rely solely on Google to build traffic or you might lose a lot of money. They lost $400k in business from it.
- userbinator 11y ago
  Google changes its search algorithms periodically in an attempt to thwart the SEO spammers, which sounds like a good thing until you notice a lot of sites which had good in-depth information - but wasn't really SEO'd much if at all - are unfortunately also disappearing from the results along with the spam. It could just be my nostalgia, but the Web felt like a much... richer place 10 years ago. Sure there was more spam (and it was relatively easy to ignore), but among that were sites which had lots of interesting info, in very simple and readable styling, and almost no ads. These days it seems Google second-guesses queries far too much, and all you get are bland-looking, very similar sites with very meagre portions of irrelevant or superficial information along with large amounts of (I block them, but some still slip through) ads, social media widgets, and other distracting cruft.
  - wpietri 11y ago
    I guess that could be Google over-filtering, but I think the more likely explanation is that 10 years ago that there wasn't as much much SEO effort, so it was easier for Google to pick the good pages out. So if Google weren't aggressively trying to correct for SEO spam, you'd see even more bad sites with meager information and lots of social media widgets.
someear 11y ago
Decent read, but not a fan of the clickbait headline. Don't usually see this from TC.
chbrown 11y ago
Interesting proposition though; can Google's search algorithm's ranking be construed as libel or something legal like that? Has anyone ever sued Google for lost business, and won?
- amenghra 11y ago
  The strongest case for lost business due to Google (it was Maps though, not search) that I'm aware of was: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jul/08/restaurant-owner-sues-google-over-maps-listing-sabotage http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jul/08/restaurant.... Unsure what the outcome was.
- swang 11y ago
  I do recall SEO/Ad spammers have sued Google, but they lost.
pauldbau 11y ago
Title is clickbait and inaccurate - they raised €550k at 100,000 users. So they bootstrapped until 100k users (still a great achievement), but hardly to 4mil users as the title would suggest.
- idlewords 11y ago
  I think you have a typo. They raised €550K at 100,000 users.
  - pauldbau 11y ago
    Corrected ;)
- badlogic 11y ago
  Even funnier: they forgot to mention all that sweet sweet EU and Austrian R&D funding money they received over the last couple of years for 'research projects' that don't deserve that title at all.
- dang 11y ago
  Can you or anyone suggest an accurate, neutral title? We'll change it.
  - nwenzel 11y ago
    At least remove the Google part. Maybe just "How we grew to 4M users" since they didn't bootstrap. They got traction and raised money. Also, their software is actually really helpful at thinking through ideas. I don't mean to knock them. But the title is wrong and takes away from their achievement.
    - dang 11y ago
      Good suggestion! Done.
siquick 11y ago
This is a classic example of why it's unwise to have SEO as your prime growth strategy.
Animats 11y ago
It took a while to find out that "mind mapping" is just a tool for drawing charts with circles and arrows. (Whatever happened to UML? Anyone remember UML?)
- YZF 11y ago
  It's more of a visual brainstorming tool. It's kind of fun. There's some pseudo-science around it but it helps some people organize/visualize their thoughts (studies apparently show it helps). UML is still around but really not much connection between the two. UML is for techies while mind maps are for everyone and not very structured or formal.
kriro 11y ago
I disagree with the sentiment that watching Apple demos is a great idea. These days it seems that they are somewhat willing to sacrifice usability for looks which is rather bad (imo, I have no data to back this claim). The influence of Google on their revenue (or time they had to spend) was interesting and a bit scarry. I also couldn't help but feel this was somewhat of an "add post" (at first I thought it might be a positioning to get acquired type post). Sure enough in the end they "peddle" their newest product and throw in a PG for good measure. Seems like it's a "lets blog about this and get on HN" type "growth hack".

61 points by funkyy 11y ago

cenal 11y ago

tl;dr = Google at first approved of the tactic these guys used then suddenly without warning changed their search algorithm and penalized these guys. Lesson, don't rely solely on Google to build traffic or you might lose a lot of money. They lost $400k in business from it.

userbinator 11y ago
Google changes its search algorithms periodically in an attempt to thwart the SEO spammers, which sounds like a good thing until you notice a lot of sites which had good in-depth information - but wasn't really SEO'd much if at all - are unfortunately also disappearing from the results along with the spam. It could just be my nostalgia, but the Web felt like a much... richer place 10 years ago. Sure there was more spam (and it was relatively easy to ignore), but among that were sites which had lots of interesting info, in very simple and readable styling, and almost no ads. These days it seems Google second-guesses queries far too much, and all you get are bland-looking, very similar sites with very meagre portions of irrelevant or superficial information along with large amounts of (I block them, but some still slip through) ads, social media widgets, and other distracting cruft.
- wpietri 11y ago
  I guess that could be Google over-filtering, but I think the more likely explanation is that 10 years ago that there wasn't as much much SEO effort, so it was easier for Google to pick the good pages out. So if Google weren't aggressively trying to correct for SEO spam, you'd see even more bad sites with meager information and lots of social media widgets.

someear 11y ago

Decent read, but not a fan of the clickbait headline. Don't usually see this from TC.

chbrown 11y ago

Interesting proposition though; can Google's search algorithm's ranking be construed as libel or something legal like that? Has anyone ever sued Google for lost business, and won?

amenghra 11y ago
The strongest case for lost business due to Google (it was Maps though, not search) that I'm aware of was: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jul/08/restaurant-owner-sues-google-over-maps-listing-sabotage http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jul/08/restaurant.... Unsure what the outcome was.
swang 11y ago
I do recall SEO/Ad spammers have sued Google, but they lost.

pauldbau 11y ago

Title is clickbait and inaccurate - they raised €550k at 100,000 users. So they bootstrapped until 100k users (still a great achievement), but hardly to 4mil users as the title would suggest.

idlewords 11y ago
I think you have a typo. They raised €550K at 100,000 users.
- pauldbau 11y ago
  Corrected ;)
badlogic 11y ago
Even funnier: they forgot to mention all that sweet sweet EU and Austrian R&D funding money they received over the last couple of years for 'research projects' that don't deserve that title at all.
dang 11y ago
Can you or anyone suggest an accurate, neutral title? We'll change it.
- nwenzel 11y ago
  At least remove the Google part. Maybe just "How we grew to 4M users" since they didn't bootstrap. They got traction and raised money. Also, their software is actually really helpful at thinking through ideas. I don't mean to knock them. But the title is wrong and takes away from their achievement.
  - dang 11y ago
    Good suggestion! Done.

siquick 11y ago

This is a classic example of why it's unwise to have SEO as your prime growth strategy.

Animats 11y ago

It took a while to find out that "mind mapping" is just a tool for drawing charts with circles and arrows. (Whatever happened to UML? Anyone remember UML?)

YZF 11y ago
It's more of a visual brainstorming tool. It's kind of fun. There's some pseudo-science around it but it helps some people organize/visualize their thoughts (studies apparently show it helps). UML is still around but really not much connection between the two. UML is for techies while mind maps are for everyone and not very structured or formal.

kriro 11y ago

I disagree with the sentiment that watching Apple demos is a great idea. These days it seems that they are somewhat willing to sacrifice usability for looks which is rather bad (imo, I have no data to back this claim). The influence of Google on their revenue (or time they had to spend) was interesting and a bit scarry. I also couldn't help but feel this was somewhat of an "add post" (at first I thought it might be a positioning to get acquired type post). Sure enough in the end they "peddle" their newest product and throw in a PG for good measure. Seems like it's a "lets blog about this and get on HN" type "growth hack".