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I’ll second the PG advice: do things that don’t scale is by far the most effective tool I’ve found for finding _and keeping_ users. I’m building small-business

by Doches 9y ago

I’ll second the PG advice: do things that don’t scale is by far the most effective tool I’ve found for finding _and keeping_ users. I’m building small-business tools for fringe retail [0] as a side-project, and those users are usually more than willing to at least investigate new apps if they even have a chance of solving some real problem their business faces. Emailing them personally with a pitch based on a few minute’s research into their business reliably generates leads — and meticulous hand-holding through the first few weeks usually convinces them to stick around. People are used to paying for software from Intuit or Microsoft or whatever; offering to build (tiny! like, 5-minute one-offs!) features _just for them_ sort of blows their minds. And those features almost always make the product better, usually in a way that I would never have thought of. I’ve also had pretty great success with an old-school hack: I use an affiliate marketing scheme to turn our most enthusiastic users into mini sales reps. For every new customer they can sign up that converts, I credit their account with a few free months. It totally won’t scale, but it helps me grow into markets where I can’t physically travel out and do sales in person. [0] https://quailhq.com https://quailhq.com

franciscop 9y ago
> For every new customer they can sign up that converts, I credit their account with a few free months. It totally won’t scale [...] I don't know the market/business, but why not? isn't that what Dropbox does at scale?
- jefozabuss 9y ago
  To scale it probably needs to provide $ incentives, since power affiliates would rack up thousands of free months which they could never use.
  - nolok 9y ago
    Yes and no, you just need to offer credits. The point is not about re-sellers (that don't have the need to spend what they earn on your service), for those you need $, it's about referral, and if you're selling FOOs, you're probably fine selling a FOO with a 15% discount if it also guarantees you another FOO bought at full price, or even if both FOO are at discount. People accumulating so much credit to the point that they can't spend it is a non issue in that referral (like Dropbox) is meant to be scaling wide, for scaling tall you need a re-sellers system (like say what Amazon or OVH are offering).
- nolok 9y ago
  I would go one step further and say referral promotion/advantage is one of the easiest and most common scalable "cheap marketing" tool. My bank does it, my dropbox does it, my hosting company does it, even the place where I buy my jeans does it.
- ziikutv 9y ago
  The other interpretation of this, if you have millions of paid users, that are getting 5 months free.. that's 5 months of you paying the bill and not getting any revenue. That wont scale in terms of maintainability. At least that is what I assumed when I read that.
  - donmatito 9y ago
    That totally scales if the new user long term value is sufficient to recoup these 5 months. These 5 months free are an investment, that may or may not pay off, but if it reliably pays off, then yes, it is a very healthy customer acquisition strategy.
WrtCdEvrydy 9y ago
Alternative side, as a big company when I get a nice small startup that tries to fit our needs that way, I keep them close. It's like the whole "you owe bank money" story. If you owe the back $1,0000 you have a problem, if you owe them 1 million, they have a problem. In my experience, if you're that startup's largest client, they'll bend over backwards to help you succeed.
- trevyn 9y ago
  "If you owe the bank $100 that's your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that's the bank's problem." - J. Paul Getty
dkarl 9y ago
offering to build (tiny! like, 5-minute one-offs!) features _just for them_ sort of blows their minds How did you manage to do that without making it impossible to add major new functionality to your app? Did you nail the basic functionality of the app from the starting gate and go straight into maintenance/feature-tweaking mode? meticulous hand-holding through the first few weeks usually convinces them to stick around This must have created some awfully high expectations from users, which is a double-edged sword. Were you able to keep up with expectations when you got enough users to sustain the business?
- jaredklewis 9y ago
  If we are choosing between the problems of: A) Having users, with high expectations B) Not having users Problem A is a way better problem to have. Of course, no business would intentionally try to cultivate a user base of picky, high maintenance pain-in-the-necks. Nor would it be anyone's long term goal to be hacking on user requested features. But if those things bring users, easy trade. It's hard to think of any problem that would be more important than the problem of not having users.
  - cmorelli 9y ago
    This. There's also a difference between holding your customer's hand and building unsustainable expectations. The only expectation you've built by holding their hand through the onboarding process is that you care about your customers and want them to have a great experience. That's exactly the expectation you want your customers to have. Many startups have been incredibly successful at acquiring customers from incumbent businesses with more features and possibly cheaper products, by simply caring more about people. At the end of the day there are people using your product (presumably). The more those people feel you care about them and their problems, the more likely they are to give you a little space as your business gets off the ground. Maybe they're willing to tolerate a few minutes of downtime, the occasional bug, or missing feature, because they know that they're always going to be treated well by your team. Cultivating strong customer relationships is a great element in any business, and it's virtually a requirement in modern B2B.
  - 9y ago
EGreg 9y ago
For every new customer they can sign up that converts, I credit their account with a few free months. It totally won’t scale, but it helps me grow into markets where I can’t physically travel out and do sales in person. Why wouldn't it scale? It is a great way to make virality.

by Doches 9y ago

franciscop 9y ago

> For every new customer they can sign up that converts, I credit their account with a few free months. It totally won’t scale [...] I don't know the market/business, but why not? isn't that what Dropbox does at scale?

jefozabuss 9y ago
To scale it probably needs to provide $ incentives, since power affiliates would rack up thousands of free months which they could never use.
- nolok 9y ago
  Yes and no, you just need to offer credits. The point is not about re-sellers (that don't have the need to spend what they earn on your service), for those you need $, it's about referral, and if you're selling FOOs, you're probably fine selling a FOO with a 15% discount if it also guarantees you another FOO bought at full price, or even if both FOO are at discount. People accumulating so much credit to the point that they can't spend it is a non issue in that referral (like Dropbox) is meant to be scaling wide, for scaling tall you need a re-sellers system (like say what Amazon or OVH are offering).
nolok 9y ago
I would go one step further and say referral promotion/advantage is one of the easiest and most common scalable "cheap marketing" tool. My bank does it, my dropbox does it, my hosting company does it, even the place where I buy my jeans does it.
ziikutv 9y ago
The other interpretation of this, if you have millions of paid users, that are getting 5 months free.. that's 5 months of you paying the bill and not getting any revenue. That wont scale in terms of maintainability. At least that is what I assumed when I read that.
- donmatito 9y ago
  That totally scales if the new user long term value is sufficient to recoup these 5 months. These 5 months free are an investment, that may or may not pay off, but if it reliably pays off, then yes, it is a very healthy customer acquisition strategy.

WrtCdEvrydy 9y ago

Alternative side, as a big company when I get a nice small startup that tries to fit our needs that way, I keep them close. It's like the whole "you owe bank money" story. If you owe the back $1,0000 you have a problem, if you owe them 1 million, they have a problem. In my experience, if you're that startup's largest client, they'll bend over backwards to help you succeed.

trevyn 9y ago
"If you owe the bank $100 that's your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that's the bank's problem." - J. Paul Getty

dkarl 9y ago

offering to build (tiny! like, 5-minute one-offs!) features _just for them_ sort of blows their minds How did you manage to do that without making it impossible to add major new functionality to your app? Did you nail the basic functionality of the app from the starting gate and go straight into maintenance/feature-tweaking mode? meticulous hand-holding through the first few weeks usually convinces them to stick around This must have created some awfully high expectations from users, which is a double-edged sword. Were you able to keep up with expectations when you got enough users to sustain the business?

jaredklewis 9y ago
If we are choosing between the problems of: A) Having users, with high expectations B) Not having users Problem A is a way better problem to have. Of course, no business would intentionally try to cultivate a user base of picky, high maintenance pain-in-the-necks. Nor would it be anyone's long term goal to be hacking on user requested features. But if those things bring users, easy trade. It's hard to think of any problem that would be more important than the problem of not having users.
- cmorelli 9y ago
  This. There's also a difference between holding your customer's hand and building unsustainable expectations. The only expectation you've built by holding their hand through the onboarding process is that you care about your customers and want them to have a great experience. That's exactly the expectation you want your customers to have. Many startups have been incredibly successful at acquiring customers from incumbent businesses with more features and possibly cheaper products, by simply caring more about people. At the end of the day there are people using your product (presumably). The more those people feel you care about them and their problems, the more likely they are to give you a little space as your business gets off the ground. Maybe they're willing to tolerate a few minutes of downtime, the occasional bug, or missing feature, because they know that they're always going to be treated well by your team. Cultivating strong customer relationships is a great element in any business, and it's virtually a requirement in modern B2B.
- 9y ago

EGreg 9y ago

For every new customer they can sign up that converts, I credit their account with a few free months. It totally won’t scale, but it helps me grow into markets where I can’t physically travel out and do sales in person. Why wouldn't it scale? It is a great way to make virality.