5 ms·

Getting traction for your startup – how we did it.

52 points by shafqat 17y ago

shafqat 17y ago
I know a lot of this is obvious to some, but I gotten feedback that it's helpful so I thought I'd share with the community. Bottom line - SEO is your friend when you're looking to build a large, sustainable audience.
- patio11 17y ago
  Preach it brother! SEO scales ridiculously out of proportion with time invested, does not typically require dedicated upkeep outside of continuing to execute on the business, can be done without large ongoing payments of money, largely does not depend on pleasing gatekeepers (a task which almost always distracts you from executing on the business), etc, etc.
  - pmjoyce 17y ago
    The OP seemed to credit the number and quality of the backlinks gained as opposed to a SEO strategy per se. I understand that SEO is vitally important, but for getting high quality backlinks (which in turn generate a more back links) you'll always have to go though, and please, gatekeepers.
benologist 17y ago
An interesting approach but it sounds like it really boiled down to the backlinks you got as a result of the TC article ... and having an existing (if not extensive) relationship with Arrington. While that's definitely valid it's a combination that's out of reach for most startups. I would have to say for me personally word of mouth outranks SEO enormously at this (early) point in my startup. To me SEO is about getting every joe typing whatever into Google, word of mouth is securing a lot fewer but a lot more notable users. Only one significant blog (and only significant to casual game devs) has written anything about me in the month since I posted here asking how guys launch startups. And in terms of link creation ... just scraper blogs stealing that guys content really. But word of mouth has led to some of the biggest names in the industry using my service now.
- shafqat 17y ago
  Backlinks were huge, but I had absolutely NO relationship whatsoever with Arrington, Jason or anyone else in Silcon Valley. I link to post that explains how we got on TC. It's all perseverance and creativity. But I agree, that word of mouth and passionate users are absolutely essential. You can still get backlinks from these 'notable users' - they have blogs right? If you have a product with a viral coefficient approaching 1, you'll be all set. But for the rest of us, backlinks and organic traffic give us a steady base of users to test, iterate and get feedback from.
jeff18 17y ago
That sounds like pretty decent advice. I have one nitpick though, which is the advice to leave blog comments everywhere and to relentlessly tell all of your friends about your startup. That surely cannot hurt, but the return on investment of posting comments on a site is minute. I mean, I am addicted to commenting on HN and other sites daily and it is a lot of fun, but the notion that this is actually a good use of time for my startup is wishful thinking. I would never expect to get a single customer from this. I think getting an article on TechCrunch is of debatable value... but the traffic you'd get from a comment underneath an article from people checking out your profile link is miniscule. Regarding telling your friends -- again, it doesn't hurt, but it is thinking really small and is not sustainable. That might be a good strategy for winning a minor student council election, but the ROI is going to be utterly negligible. Basically, you could spend a week phoning everyone you know and convince them to check out your site. If you're lucky, this would roughly equal the amount of traffic you would get by having a moderately influential person spend 30 seconds writing a tweet about you.
- patio11 17y ago
  You also tend to be friends with people who are a lot like you, and to be related to people who are a lot like you, but your customers might not be like you at all. (I can't remember the last time I spent time socially with someone who hits my typical customer demographic.)
  - shafqat 17y ago
    This is a good point. Our first version of our consumer site was flawed in many ways. But we kept getting positive reinforcement from our friends/family and didnt put it in perspective. It's important to take a step back and look objectively at all feedback, especially if it comes from a demographic that is not your core customer.
- sunir 17y ago
  Until you have tried it, don't knock it. They have actually done it and have demonstrable success. You comment on blogs to engage the existing early adopters of the niche you are targeting to start the process of customer development. You hit up friends to practice pitching (don't underestimate this) and getting some up front feedback on the cheap to help refine your idea.

52 points by shafqat 17y ago

I know a lot of this is obvious to some, but I gotten feedback that it's helpful so I thought I'd share with the community. Bottom line - SEO is your friend when you're looking to build a large, sustainable audience.

patio11 17y ago
Preach it brother! SEO scales ridiculously out of proportion with time invested, does not typically require dedicated upkeep outside of continuing to execute on the business, can be done without large ongoing payments of money, largely does not depend on pleasing gatekeepers (a task which almost always distracts you from executing on the business), etc, etc.
- pmjoyce 17y ago
  The OP seemed to credit the number and quality of the backlinks gained as opposed to a SEO strategy per se. I understand that SEO is vitally important, but for getting high quality backlinks (which in turn generate a more back links) you'll always have to go though, and please, gatekeepers.

benologist 17y ago

An interesting approach but it sounds like it really boiled down to the backlinks you got as a result of the TC article ... and having an existing (if not extensive) relationship with Arrington. While that's definitely valid it's a combination that's out of reach for most startups. I would have to say for me personally word of mouth outranks SEO enormously at this (early) point in my startup. To me SEO is about getting every joe typing whatever into Google, word of mouth is securing a lot fewer but a lot more notable users. Only one significant blog (and only significant to casual game devs) has written anything about me in the month since I posted here asking how guys launch startups. And in terms of link creation ... just scraper blogs stealing that guys content really. But word of mouth has led to some of the biggest names in the industry using my service now.

shafqat 17y ago
Backlinks were huge, but I had absolutely NO relationship whatsoever with Arrington, Jason or anyone else in Silcon Valley. I link to post that explains how we got on TC. It's all perseverance and creativity. But I agree, that word of mouth and passionate users are absolutely essential. You can still get backlinks from these 'notable users' - they have blogs right? If you have a product with a viral coefficient approaching 1, you'll be all set. But for the rest of us, backlinks and organic traffic give us a steady base of users to test, iterate and get feedback from.

jeff18 17y ago

That sounds like pretty decent advice. I have one nitpick though, which is the advice to leave blog comments everywhere and to relentlessly tell all of your friends about your startup. That surely cannot hurt, but the return on investment of posting comments on a site is minute. I mean, I am addicted to commenting on HN and other sites daily and it is a lot of fun, but the notion that this is actually a good use of time for my startup is wishful thinking. I would never expect to get a single customer from this. I think getting an article on TechCrunch is of debatable value... but the traffic you'd get from a comment underneath an article from people checking out your profile link is miniscule. Regarding telling your friends -- again, it doesn't hurt, but it is thinking really small and is not sustainable. That might be a good strategy for winning a minor student council election, but the ROI is going to be utterly negligible. Basically, you could spend a week phoning everyone you know and convince them to check out your site. If you're lucky, this would roughly equal the amount of traffic you would get by having a moderately influential person spend 30 seconds writing a tweet about you.

patio11 17y ago
You also tend to be friends with people who are a lot like you, and to be related to people who are a lot like you, but your customers might not be like you at all. (I can't remember the last time I spent time socially with someone who hits my typical customer demographic.)
- shafqat 17y ago
  This is a good point. Our first version of our consumer site was flawed in many ways. But we kept getting positive reinforcement from our friends/family and didnt put it in perspective. It's important to take a step back and look objectively at all feedback, especially if it comes from a demographic that is not your core customer.
sunir 17y ago
Until you have tried it, don't knock it. They have actually done it and have demonstrable success. You comment on blogs to engage the existing early adopters of the niche you are targeting to start the process of customer development. You hit up friends to practice pitching (don't underestimate this) and getting some up front feedback on the cheap to help refine your idea.