4 ms·

Ask HN: How do you overcome the chicken and egg problem?

12 points by jwwest 16y ago

You're building a community driven site that relies on member generated content. Potential users don't want to participate unless there's content. What do you do?

Mz 16y ago
I think that depends in part on what type of content you are aiming for. I did gather a few links to previous discussions on this topic (and a couple of related articles) here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2126209 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2126209
antidaily 16y ago
The Reddit guys faked submissions for months until the site caught on.
jonafato 16y ago
Depending on the type of content you need, you could try leveraging Mechanical Turk. Or, as others have said, fake it. Also, posting a link here couldn't hurt (providing it is live).
asanwal 16y ago
In general, you to have seed one side. Would also recommend checking out this HBR paper - Strategies for Two-Sided Markets. It's talk of the "money side" and "subsidy side" is quite good.
veb 16y ago
Make 20 different user accounts. Create 20 different pieces of content, from 20 different people. Rinse and repeat. To a new user, it'll look like there's some serious activity, and they'll join in. I believe this is what Quora did.
Swannie 16y ago
Find another source of this same content. Based on the licensing of it either: use it directly, quote and reference to it, approach the best contributors and offer to pay peanuts for their content, approach the site and pay for a bulk license. Or just outright steal it and deal with the repercussions later :-O (It worked, albeit indirectly, for YouTube etc.) Or if you wish to go the normal route, add an incentive. Free "pro" accounts to the top contributors, ad-revenue share (with a minimum payout set to something sensible, like affiliate programs, so you only deal with the best contributors). Or something as simple as a points system (works well at somewhere like HN & StackOverflow).
catshirt 16y ago
am i the only one who cringes at the thought of faking users?
- jwwest 16y ago
  No. I do too, that's why I'm asking for opinions. :)
- Mz 16y ago
  Do you have a specific situation you are considering? If so, may I ask what kind of content it involves?
  - catshirt 16y ago
    regardless of the content, it feels like cheating. for whatever that's worth. "cringe" was admittedly an exaggeration.
    - Mz 16y ago
      No, I agree with you. Just wondering if I might be able to help you overcome an issue. If there's no issue you are working on, no big. We are in agreement.
      - derrida 16y ago
        How do we know hacker news isn't faking all this? Am I speaking to myself?
        Mz 16y ago
        Don't be silly. I am the one speaking to myself. Really, extremely advanced case of multiple personality disorder. (Please lead me not into humor temptation. Jokes of this sort are discouraged here and I hate when my other selves downvote me.)
kongqiu 16y ago
I'm tackling this problem at my startup, ParkGrades.com, by: 1. Seeding the site with as much quality information as I possibly can (given my limited resources); 2. Incenting users to add content through giveaways; 3. Testing the giveaways to see which incentives work best. Once a given area/topic has a certain amount of information, it's then much easier to promote that area/topic with additional marketing and incentives.
keiferski 16y ago
This isn't the answer you're looking for, but I'll give it anyway: Reframe your site so that you don't rely on the community to power it -- make it so each user can use the product to its fullest extent without a single other user. We had this same problem during the early planning process for our (currently just my) startup. Ultimately we realized that we were looking at the problem the wrong way. Instead of making the tool community-powered, we made it individual-user-powered. This lets us be "successful" with far, far less users. Obviously this probably won't work for your site, but maybe it's just a useful thought exercise.
derrida 16y ago
Have a conversation with yourself and 100's of usernames. Worked for me first time I made a forum in the late 90's Within a couple of weeks the site membership was exponentially increasing and out of control.
solipsist 16y ago
As other people have already posted, the founders of Quora and Reddit have admitted to generating "fake" content on their own to attract users to the site. Reddit supposedly did this for the first few weeks until it got going. I also remember reading that Quora put in a lot of hours generating the "fake" content, but it has seemed to pay off quite well. When looking at your community, find ways that you and your friends/cofounders can easily generate lots of hiqh-quality content. It's important to set the tone of the site when you're generating the content. If you make lots of spam or low-quality content due to time constraints, the site will get a poor reputation and new users will continue the trend of making bad content. So make sure you generate the content wisely from the beginning :)
rcavezza 16y ago
I would create two separate services for each side - services that doesn't require the "egg" or "chicken". Once you hit critical mass, you can start integrating the futures. Let's say you want to create a "find a cofounder website". =====Very Specific Example Here ===== For tech entrepreneurs, you might create a tool that helps with adwords or business development. Maybe a directory of similar startups in their niche & pre-typed business development sample emails. For business entrepreneurs, maybe create a lean website testing quick app that will test if their idea is viable. Idk, fake pricing page, fake screenshot, and they'd put in their prices, features, and sales copy. Maybe you can go even simpler and create one of those dumb quiz sites: Are you a tech cofounder or a business cofounder quizzes - make it funny and you can get email addresses on both sides of the coin. Just getting the email addresses alone can potentially help solve the problem.

12 points by jwwest 16y ago

You're building a community driven site that relies on member generated content. Potential users don't want to participate unless there's content. What do you do?

Mz 16y ago

I think that depends in part on what type of content you are aiming for. I did gather a few links to previous discussions on this topic (and a couple of related articles) here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2126209 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2126209

antidaily 16y ago

The Reddit guys faked submissions for months until the site caught on.

jonafato 16y ago

Depending on the type of content you need, you could try leveraging Mechanical Turk. Or, as others have said, fake it. Also, posting a link here couldn't hurt (providing it is live).

asanwal 16y ago

In general, you to have seed one side. Would also recommend checking out this HBR paper - Strategies for Two-Sided Markets. It's talk of the "money side" and "subsidy side" is quite good.

veb 16y ago

Make 20 different user accounts. Create 20 different pieces of content, from 20 different people. Rinse and repeat. To a new user, it'll look like there's some serious activity, and they'll join in. I believe this is what Quora did.

Swannie 16y ago

Find another source of this same content. Based on the licensing of it either: use it directly, quote and reference to it, approach the best contributors and offer to pay peanuts for their content, approach the site and pay for a bulk license. Or just outright steal it and deal with the repercussions later :-O (It worked, albeit indirectly, for YouTube etc.) Or if you wish to go the normal route, add an incentive. Free "pro" accounts to the top contributors, ad-revenue share (with a minimum payout set to something sensible, like affiliate programs, so you only deal with the best contributors). Or something as simple as a points system (works well at somewhere like HN & StackOverflow).

catshirt 16y ago

am i the only one who cringes at the thought of faking users?

jwwest 16y ago
No. I do too, that's why I'm asking for opinions. :)
Mz 16y ago
Do you have a specific situation you are considering? If so, may I ask what kind of content it involves?
- catshirt 16y ago
  regardless of the content, it feels like cheating. for whatever that's worth. "cringe" was admittedly an exaggeration.
  - Mz 16y ago
    No, I agree with you. Just wondering if I might be able to help you overcome an issue. If there's no issue you are working on, no big. We are in agreement.
    - derrida 16y ago
      How do we know hacker news isn't faking all this? Am I speaking to myself?
      - Mz 16y ago
        Don't be silly. I am the one speaking to myself. Really, extremely advanced case of multiple personality disorder. (Please lead me not into humor temptation. Jokes of this sort are discouraged here and I hate when my other selves downvote me.)

kongqiu 16y ago

I'm tackling this problem at my startup, ParkGrades.com, by: 1. Seeding the site with as much quality information as I possibly can (given my limited resources); 2. Incenting users to add content through giveaways; 3. Testing the giveaways to see which incentives work best. Once a given area/topic has a certain amount of information, it's then much easier to promote that area/topic with additional marketing and incentives.

keiferski 16y ago

This isn't the answer you're looking for, but I'll give it anyway: Reframe your site so that you don't rely on the community to power it -- make it so each user can use the product to its fullest extent without a single other user. We had this same problem during the early planning process for our (currently just my) startup. Ultimately we realized that we were looking at the problem the wrong way. Instead of making the tool community-powered, we made it individual-user-powered. This lets us be "successful" with far, far less users. Obviously this probably won't work for your site, but maybe it's just a useful thought exercise.

derrida 16y ago

Have a conversation with yourself and 100's of usernames. Worked for me first time I made a forum in the late 90's Within a couple of weeks the site membership was exponentially increasing and out of control.

solipsist 16y ago

As other people have already posted, the founders of Quora and Reddit have admitted to generating "fake" content on their own to attract users to the site. Reddit supposedly did this for the first few weeks until it got going. I also remember reading that Quora put in a lot of hours generating the "fake" content, but it has seemed to pay off quite well. When looking at your community, find ways that you and your friends/cofounders can easily generate lots of hiqh-quality content. It's important to set the tone of the site when you're generating the content. If you make lots of spam or low-quality content due to time constraints, the site will get a poor reputation and new users will continue the trend of making bad content. So make sure you generate the content wisely from the beginning :)

rcavezza 16y ago

I would create two separate services for each side - services that doesn't require the "egg" or "chicken". Once you hit critical mass, you can start integrating the futures. Let's say you want to create a "find a cofounder website". =====Very Specific Example Here ===== For tech entrepreneurs, you might create a tool that helps with adwords or business development. Maybe a directory of similar startups in their niche & pre-typed business development sample emails. For business entrepreneurs, maybe create a lean website testing quick app that will test if their idea is viable. Idk, fake pricing page, fake screenshot, and they'd put in their prices, features, and sales copy. Maybe you can go even simpler and create one of those dumb quiz sites: Are you a tech cofounder or a business cofounder quizzes - make it funny and you can get email addresses on both sides of the coin. Just getting the email addresses alone can potentially help solve the problem.