11 ms·

How we got our first 100 paying customers

110 points by mattiemass 11y ago

retube 11y ago
FYI "dayly" should be "daily" But very nice site
TlDrBot 11y ago
Summary: Company did not find a marketing channel. Company relies on word of mouth. Orig wordcount: 2152 TlDr wordcount: 13 Saved: 99.40%
- timClicks 11y ago
  If this really is a bot, I'm just astonished. Well done to the crew behind this.
  - Geee 11y ago
    There's probably some 'selection bias'. I think they might run the bot on every article, but post the summary only if it matches well.
  - slazaro 11y ago
    I'm skeptical. The phrase "marketing channel" does not appear verbatim on the article. I'd say it either has really good NLP or there's a human somewhere.
  - amelius 11y ago
    If this is a bot, then why isn't it running on at least all of the front-page HN stories? But anyway, please keep posting :)
  - toyg 11y ago
    I expect they manually write the summary, then let the "bot" calculate wordcount and post, i.e. like a command: "tldr Company did not find a marketing channel. Company relies on word of mouth."
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- staticelf 11y ago
  This post was way more interesting than the blog article.
- annnnd 11y ago
  How about: company discovered that having a good product your customers really use and recommend helps to sell the product. I enjoyed the post. Nothing ground breaking, but a nice reminder that no amount of marketing will help you if your customers are not satisfied with what they get. Good luck to OP!
- rubidium 11y ago
  You forgot some useful data: "While our first customers came from the above mentioned sources, including press articles, presentations, etc., almost 80% of our first 100 customers came through referrals. Another interesting point at this stage: hardly any user or customer recommended us due to cash benefits or discounts. We offer a 10% discount to our users when they invite new customers. However, when we looked at the number of actual referrals, we realized this program had little response."
jjoe 11y ago
I'm glad you found a strategy that got you your first 100 paying clients. But now you're unable to determine your CAC or CLV and have no idea how to scale acquisition. Or at the very least, your CAC is through the roof because your employees are the ones hustling (social, support, visibility, etc). That's difficult to scale and/or measure properly. Have you completely abandoned the traditional methods?
- mootothemax 11y ago
  I don't know why you've been downvoted, you're absolutely right: there's still a cost of acquisition here, and it's likely one that's pretty difficult to track down.
  - annnnd 11y ago
    That is true - do you have a suggestion? Apart from Facebook and AdWords, what kind of marketing should OP try?
gtirloni 11y ago
It must be a lot more satisfying to have new customers that were recommended by people that trust your product rather than some dumb/probabilistic marketing channel. In a VC-backed world, that is hard to come by because everybody is so focused on hypergrowth, but if the company can afford to organically grow the business based on timeless good features (your product delivers value and you care about your users) than it should feel much better.
scandox 11y ago
I think what's useful here are the numbers around PPC. I think many people have totally unrealistic expectations about CAC through these channels. I'd be interested how they would now perform if they returned to PPC...
- mschenkel 11y ago
  I operate a SaaS that is based around Google Analytics Dashboarding (http://www.embeddedanalytics.com http://www.embeddedanalytics.com). I have never had success with Google Adwords, very low conversion rate to signups (<2%). Traffic coming from referral sites (mostly stackoverflow.com) is much better.
simonswords82 11y ago
Interesting PPC numbers. If they don't like the figures they were seeing > Whether it is “project management” (€ 6.00 per click), “social collaboration” (€ 4.40 per click) or other similar keywords, the costs are in high ranges. They would absolutely hate my industry. HR software, the number one keyword for people looking for our app http://www.staffsquared.com http://www.staffsquared.com, is currently about £30 per click! It's symptomatic of this particular niche being occupied by incumbents who can afford not to optimise their Adwords campaign. I should probably write a blog post at some point about how we got around using Adwords to grow.
- m0nty 11y ago
  I would be interested in that, I'm sure many others would too.
  - simonswords82 11y ago
    Interesting. Okay I'll give that some actual thought and see if I can get something down to submit to the HN crowd.
- Avalaxy 11y ago
  At least this post on HN drove your average CPC down ;)
  - simonswords82 11y ago
    Indeed :)
- aprdm 11y ago
  wow, £30 for a click?!
  - morgante 11y ago
    Some pharmaceutical keywords see bids in the hundreds.
  - 11y ago
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
JonoBB 11y ago
Not being snarky, but you really need a copywriter to review the wording on your site. dayly (should be daily) the data are encrypted Over 10.000 companies joined Stackfield Keep your information, that are not intended for the public,
- morgante 11y ago
  > Not being snarky, but you really need a copywriter to review the wording on your site. It looks like they're a German company, so it would definitely be valuable to get a native English speaker to review the site.
  - onli 11y ago
    > Over 10.000 companies joined Stackfield Yeah. Took me a while to see the error in that sentence, it's a good example. In german we write that with a . and not with a , which explain this one.
- bshimmin 11y ago
  the data are encrypted is correct - "data" is plural.
  - smhg 11y ago
    Language is a convention. It can change. The convention seems to be the data is these days. Like agenda, which took the same road in the past.
  - adrianN 11y ago
    Language Log has a post about this topic http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=4396 http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=4396 I quote: "My own view is that there are contexts where it’s okay to treat data as a plural, but none in which you can’t treat it as a singular—and that contrary to what many “reasonable” usage writers counsel, this isn't simply a matter of “style and personal preference.” " Other, shorter, humorous, posts about data: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=4401 http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=4401 http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=14970 http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=14970 http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=20635 http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=20635
feed16 11y ago
What was the company? I didn't catch this in the article.
kfk 11y ago
They mention going through an accounting department in the case of big companies, I wonder if anybody had more luck with this?
- toyg 11y ago
  "More luck" in what sense? All enterprise companies will have plenty of obstacles thrown in the way of new suppliers. The most classic: if you are not on the suppliers' list, i cannot buy from you; and you cannot get on the suppliers' list unless I buy from you. Catch-22. Joel Spolsky recommends to figure out the average limit for single-item purchases on corporate credit-cards, and stay under that. This may or may not work in your particular segment.
smickie 11y ago
There's a typo on your home page: "Stackfield offers you a selection of tools that every team needs to get the dayly work done." Dayly should be daily. Also cool post!
sarciszewski 11y ago
I was curious about their "encryption" since they seem to emphasize it a lot. https://www.stackfield.com/security https://www.stackfield.com/security This page indicates they're using RSA-2048 and AES-256. Wow, that's so vague. So I signed up. It's using Javascript Cryptography, which is never a good sign: https://www.nccgroup.trust/us/about-us/newsroom-and-events/blog/2011/august/javascript-cryptography-considered-harmful/ https://www.nccgroup.trust/us/about-us/newsroom-and-events/b... Their RSA implementation is vulnerable to a padding oracle attack (Bleichenbacher's 1998 attack): https://www.stackfield.com/Scripts/Plugins/rsa.20160122054154.min.js https://www.stackfield.com/Scripts/Plugins/rsa.2016012205415... https://www.stackfield.com/Scripts/Plugins/rsa2.20160122054154.min.js https://www.stackfield.com/Scripts/Plugins/rsa2.201601220541... They're using AES-CTR, but they're not authenticating the ciphertext. https://www.stackfield.com/Scripts/sf.wssecurity.20160122054154.min.js https://www.stackfield.com/Scripts/sf.wssecurity.20160122054... (JSBeautifier comes to the rescue:) function DecryptOrganisationByMaster(e, a) { if (e === undefined || e.MyOrgRoleId === 3) { return false } var b = e.EncryptionCode, c = e.EncryptedCode; if (b === undefined || c === undefined || b === "" || c === "") { return false } if (OrganisationPasswords[e.OrgId] !== undefined) { return true } var d = Aes.Ctr.decrypt(c, a, 256); if (d === b) { OrganisationPasswords[e.OrgId] = a; return true } return false } This really should have been reviewed by a cryptographer before being branded so heavily as an "encryption" solution. EDIT: Also, their Aes.Ctr.encrypt() function doesn't accept a nonce: https://www.stackfield.com/Scripts/Plugins/jquery.aes.20160122054154.min.js https://www.stackfield.com/Scripts/Plugins/jquery.aes.201601... See https://gist.github.com/paragonie-scott/53428f0947337d66a786 https://gist.github.com/paragonie-scott/53428f0947337d66a786

110 points by mattiemass 11y ago

FYI "dayly" should be "daily" But very nice site

Summary: Company did not find a marketing channel. Company relies on word of mouth. Orig wordcount: 2152 TlDr wordcount: 13 Saved: 99.40%

timClicks 11y ago
If this really is a bot, I'm just astonished. Well done to the crew behind this.
- Geee 11y ago
  There's probably some 'selection bias'. I think they might run the bot on every article, but post the summary only if it matches well.
- slazaro 11y ago
  I'm skeptical. The phrase "marketing channel" does not appear verbatim on the article. I'd say it either has really good NLP or there's a human somewhere.
- amelius 11y ago
  If this is a bot, then why isn't it running on at least all of the front-page HN stories? But anyway, please keep posting :)
- toyg 11y ago
  I expect they manually write the summary, then let the "bot" calculate wordcount and post, i.e. like a command: "tldr Company did not find a marketing channel. Company relies on word of mouth."
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
staticelf 11y ago
This post was way more interesting than the blog article.
annnnd 11y ago
How about: company discovered that having a good product your customers really use and recommend helps to sell the product. I enjoyed the post. Nothing ground breaking, but a nice reminder that no amount of marketing will help you if your customers are not satisfied with what they get. Good luck to OP!
rubidium 11y ago
You forgot some useful data: "While our first customers came from the above mentioned sources, including press articles, presentations, etc., almost 80% of our first 100 customers came through referrals. Another interesting point at this stage: hardly any user or customer recommended us due to cash benefits or discounts. We offer a 10% discount to our users when they invite new customers. However, when we looked at the number of actual referrals, we realized this program had little response."

jjoe 11y ago

I'm glad you found a strategy that got you your first 100 paying clients. But now you're unable to determine your CAC or CLV and have no idea how to scale acquisition. Or at the very least, your CAC is through the roof because your employees are the ones hustling (social, support, visibility, etc). That's difficult to scale and/or measure properly. Have you completely abandoned the traditional methods?

mootothemax 11y ago
I don't know why you've been downvoted, you're absolutely right: there's still a cost of acquisition here, and it's likely one that's pretty difficult to track down.
- annnnd 11y ago
  That is true - do you have a suggestion? Apart from Facebook and AdWords, what kind of marketing should OP try?

gtirloni 11y ago

It must be a lot more satisfying to have new customers that were recommended by people that trust your product rather than some dumb/probabilistic marketing channel. In a VC-backed world, that is hard to come by because everybody is so focused on hypergrowth, but if the company can afford to organically grow the business based on timeless good features (your product delivers value and you care about your users) than it should feel much better.

scandox 11y ago

I think what's useful here are the numbers around PPC. I think many people have totally unrealistic expectations about CAC through these channels. I'd be interested how they would now perform if they returned to PPC...

mschenkel 11y ago
I operate a SaaS that is based around Google Analytics Dashboarding (http://www.embeddedanalytics.com http://www.embeddedanalytics.com). I have never had success with Google Adwords, very low conversion rate to signups (<2%). Traffic coming from referral sites (mostly stackoverflow.com) is much better.

simonswords82 11y ago

Interesting PPC numbers. If they don't like the figures they were seeing > Whether it is “project management” (€ 6.00 per click), “social collaboration” (€ 4.40 per click) or other similar keywords, the costs are in high ranges. They would absolutely hate my industry. HR software, the number one keyword for people looking for our app http://www.staffsquared.com http://www.staffsquared.com, is currently about £30 per click! It's symptomatic of this particular niche being occupied by incumbents who can afford not to optimise their Adwords campaign. I should probably write a blog post at some point about how we got around using Adwords to grow.

m0nty 11y ago
I would be interested in that, I'm sure many others would too.
- simonswords82 11y ago
  Interesting. Okay I'll give that some actual thought and see if I can get something down to submit to the HN crowd.
Avalaxy 11y ago
At least this post on HN drove your average CPC down ;)
- simonswords82 11y ago
  Indeed :)
aprdm 11y ago
wow, £30 for a click?!
- morgante 11y ago
  Some pharmaceutical keywords see bids in the hundreds.
- 11y ago

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

JonoBB 11y ago

Not being snarky, but you really need a copywriter to review the wording on your site. dayly (should be daily) the data are encrypted Over 10.000 companies joined Stackfield Keep your information, that are not intended for the public,

morgante 11y ago
> Not being snarky, but you really need a copywriter to review the wording on your site. It looks like they're a German company, so it would definitely be valuable to get a native English speaker to review the site.
- onli 11y ago
  > Over 10.000 companies joined Stackfield Yeah. Took me a while to see the error in that sentence, it's a good example. In german we write that with a . and not with a , which explain this one.
bshimmin 11y ago
the data are encrypted is correct - "data" is plural.
- smhg 11y ago
  Language is a convention. It can change. The convention seems to be the data is these days. Like agenda, which took the same road in the past.
- adrianN 11y ago
  Language Log has a post about this topic http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=4396 http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=4396 I quote: "My own view is that there are contexts where it’s okay to treat data as a plural, but none in which you can’t treat it as a singular—and that contrary to what many “reasonable” usage writers counsel, this isn't simply a matter of “style and personal preference.” " Other, shorter, humorous, posts about data: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=4401 http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=4401 http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=14970 http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=14970 http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=20635 http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=20635

feed16 11y ago

What was the company? I didn't catch this in the article.

kfk 11y ago

They mention going through an accounting department in the case of big companies, I wonder if anybody had more luck with this?

toyg 11y ago
"More luck" in what sense? All enterprise companies will have plenty of obstacles thrown in the way of new suppliers. The most classic: if you are not on the suppliers' list, i cannot buy from you; and you cannot get on the suppliers' list unless I buy from you. Catch-22. Joel Spolsky recommends to figure out the average limit for single-item purchases on corporate credit-cards, and stay under that. This may or may not work in your particular segment.

smickie 11y ago

There's a typo on your home page: "Stackfield offers you a selection of tools that every team needs to get the dayly work done." Dayly should be daily. Also cool post!

sarciszewski 11y ago

I was curious about their "encryption" since they seem to emphasize it a lot. https://www.stackfield.com/security https://www.stackfield.com/security This page indicates they're using RSA-2048 and AES-256. Wow, that's so vague. So I signed up. It's using Javascript Cryptography, which is never a good sign: https://www.nccgroup.trust/us/about-us/newsroom-and-events/blog/2011/august/javascript-cryptography-considered-harmful/ https://www.nccgroup.trust/us/about-us/newsroom-and-events/b... Their RSA implementation is vulnerable to a padding oracle attack (Bleichenbacher's 1998 attack): https://www.stackfield.com/Scripts/Plugins/rsa.20160122054154.min.js https://www.stackfield.com/Scripts/Plugins/rsa.2016012205415... https://www.stackfield.com/Scripts/Plugins/rsa2.20160122054154.min.js https://www.stackfield.com/Scripts/Plugins/rsa2.201601220541... They're using AES-CTR, but they're not authenticating the ciphertext. https://www.stackfield.com/Scripts/sf.wssecurity.20160122054154.min.js https://www.stackfield.com/Scripts/sf.wssecurity.20160122054... (JSBeautifier comes to the rescue:) function DecryptOrganisationByMaster(e, a) { if (e === undefined || e.MyOrgRoleId === 3) { return false } var b = e.EncryptionCode, c = e.EncryptedCode; if (b === undefined || c === undefined || b === "" || c === "") { return false } if (OrganisationPasswords[e.OrgId] !== undefined) { return true } var d = Aes.Ctr.decrypt(c, a, 256); if (d === b) { OrganisationPasswords[e.OrgId] = a; return true } return false } This really should have been reviewed by a cryptographer before being branded so heavily as an "encryption" solution. EDIT: Also, their Aes.Ctr.encrypt() function doesn't accept a nonce: https://www.stackfield.com/Scripts/Plugins/jquery.aes.20160122054154.min.js https://www.stackfield.com/Scripts/Plugins/jquery.aes.201601... See https://gist.github.com/paragonie-scott/53428f0947337d66a786 https://gist.github.com/paragonie-scott/53428f0947337d66a786