4 ms·

Ask HN: We've launched successfully. Now what?

• fuqted 10y ago
  It might help if you mention what you're doing.
  • hackathonguy 10y ago
    Sure. Yala is a social media scheduling bot that knows the best time to post your content. https://www.yalabot.com https://www.yalabot.com Shared it here on HN today as well: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12760549 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12760549
    • fuqted 10y ago
      There are a few of those, but that's cool. One that comes to mind is MeerEdgar. Here's a podcast featuring the founder, Laura Roeder. https://empireflippers.com/laura/ https://empireflippers.com/laura/ If I remember correctly she started out as a social media consultant so Edgar was obviously a good fit. How much do you want to make Yala a winner? I think doing so would mean drinking the social media marketing kool aid. If you don't already, you should start by following Gary Vaynerchuk. You're asking how to market your company in the digital age..considering the company you founded my guess would be you already know the answer. Your blog is active but I couldn't find a link for it on your home page. Maybe you should consider directing traffic there and hosting it on Medium. The first thing I noticed while comparing your blog to MeetEdgar's is that theirs seems a lot more targeted. https://blog.yalabot.com/ https://blog.yalabot.com/ http://blog.meetedgar.com/ http://blog.meetedgar.com/ While it's awesome that you're appealing to the tech crowd, maybe you should center your content around giving social media marketing advice (Gary Vaynerchuk will make this easier). Vaynermedia also has an office at the Transbay WeWork in Sf. I've met the copywriter that works there. I don't think it would hurt to reach out to people like that and ask for advice. Personally I found out about MeetEdgar from the The TropicalMBA and EmpireFlippers podcasts. I could see you being featured on CodeNewbie. "The Hackathon Startup" - or something - in the theme of how she typically names her episodes. I'd say you should also try to be featured on Startups For the Rest of Us but after googling I see Laura's already been there. I'd try anyway. Some random tips on this: 1. When I was listening to Gary Vee's last audiobook I remember him talking about a time a Sony exec or something gave him advice. He said, basically 'don't take a tv interview unless your record is about to come out' (I'm butchering it). Basically, if you decide to content market in the form of being featured on podcasts then wait until you've made some more progress with Kala, when you're excited and rife with ideas. 2. I was watching a Sophia Amoruso interview last night (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4w_v4PCvMg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4w_v4PCvMg) and she was giving her tips on dealing with media and she basically said to have an assistant send the intro and hinted at using a fake email if you don't really have an assistant. She's built a successful company and her first book sold 200,000 copies, so take it from her.
• danieltillett 10y ago
  Explain how your bot helps me make money with actual data from real customers. Do this well and your problems are solved.
• csallen 10y ago
  Congrats! Now comes the hard part. Launch is a huge event, but it's typically difficult to get that level of press in the following months. You'll mostly have to grow on your own. The holy grail is massive, sustained, free word-of-mouth growth. You mentioned achieving product-market fit? That's usually what it looks like: You've identified a group of people who have a valuable problem, your product does a badass job solving it for them, your marketing appeals to these people specifically, and they are talking to each other about your product with enthusiasm. There are lots of examples on my website (https://IndieHackers.com https://IndieHackers.com) that showcase how various businesses have reached this point, so you might want to take a look there. Here are a few suggestions that I've distilled from these interviews: - Hang out on relevant message boards and forums, and offer your product to people who sound like they might need it. (It's important to do this in a non-spammy way, e.g. talk about other options in addition to yours, and also give them general advice.) - Offer some sort of referral/affiliate program so your customers (or even random people) can advertise for you, and you don't have to pay unless you make sales. - Look for a good distribution channel. I've talked to lots of people in the past who make almost all their sales due to exposure via the Shopify marketplace, the Google Apps marketplace, the App Store, etc. Maybe building integrations can help with this. - Direct sales is underrated. Find potential customers and email them. Go to conferences and events where you know potential customers will be, and talk to as many as possible. - Make your branding even more niche. One example is how ConvertKit went from "email marketing" to "email marketing for authors" to "email marketing for professional bloggers". It seems limiting, but it makes it way easier to find target customers' communities, and it helps you spread by word of mouth since these specific people tend to hang out together. It also gives you lots of ideas for building the features your specific customers need, so your product ends up being way better for them than alternatives. - Start producing content that your potential customers would benefit from. This is a long-term strategy that takes some serious commitment, but it can really pay off. For a good example, check out Hubstaff's blog, which I believe is crucial in helping their business generate leads: http://blog.hubstaff.com http://blog.hubstaff.com Also, your TechCrunch article says you're a bootstrapped team of 3, and I don't see any pricing. Are you giving it away for free? If there is one piece of advice you take away from this comment to the exclusion of everything else, it's this: Charge money for your product as soon as possible. It's extremely difficult to tell if you're on the right path with a business-targeted product if people can't pay for it, and it it's extremely difficult to build a company if you can't tell if you're on the right path.