5 ms·

I bet the companies using inventive ways to get their first users like the ones listed in the article are in the minority (but certainly make for more interesti

I bet the companies using inventive ways to get their first users like the ones listed in the article are in the minority (but certainly make for more interesting stories to read/write about). I launched a SaaS product recently, and after a pretty successful HN launch, I've been trying different ways of marketing. What I learned, and this may be obvious to many, is that the boring path of getting users by gamifying SEO actually works. I firmly believe that you can get your first 1K visitors by just using the formula of writing content. You don't even have to be good at writing -- target some keywords, use good SEO hygiene, have a high enough word count, and people will at least come. I pumped out some mediocre blog posts with clickbaity titles [1] just to test it, and I was surprised to see it work, bringing in consistent weekly traffic. A popular Chinese blogger including a one-liner about my product in his blog in February is the sole source that brings ~1-2 Chinese users (actually signed up) to my app every day 3 months later. [1] https://terrastruct.com/blog/10-tips-diagrams-system-design-interview/ https://terrastruct.com/blog/10-tips-diagrams-system-design-...

lennysan 6y ago
I've come across a few other startups that got started this way, but from this research it was interesting to see that wasn't big for any of the biggest consumer apps. Since you've got a SaaS product, (hopefully) you'll be happy to hear I'm doing a follow-up looking at how the fastest growing SaaS companies got started.
gauravphoenix 6y ago
Thank you for posting the comment, now that I know about your service, I am going to sign-up. So not just blog post, a mere (but meaningful) comment can get you paid users.
- lennysan 6y ago
  What a beautiful HN success story
- alixanderwang 6y ago
  Hah thanks. Despite my self-deprecation at my blog posts, the product itself I'm extremely proud of. Hope you find it useful.
kartayyar 6y ago
How did you get inbound links for your initial blog content?
- alixanderwang 6y ago
  I post them on HackerNoon, which has a "originally published at" backlink. They tweet the ones with good engagement repeatedly, people shared those tweets. It makes its way into roundups and newsletters. Occasionally, people steal them and say they authored it, but they leave the backlinks so whatever. I post some on relevant forums as well.
  - kartayyar 6y ago
    Thanks. Though don't many forums treat links as nofollow and thus don't contribute to page rank?
StavrosK 6y ago
Can you very quickly summarize the basics here? How do you find which keywords to target, how do you include them in your content, what's good SEO hygiene, what wordcount do you need, etc? Basically, I'm not really aware of how you do SEO marketing, and would like to learn.
- alixanderwang 6y ago
  I basically just read this to learn: https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/01/24/startup-seo/ https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/01/24/startup-seo/ and watch patio11's talks on microconf. I don't feel like qualified enough to give advice (also these are short term results, they say SEO takes ~6 months to yield results), so you should refer to his stuff.
  - StavrosK 6y ago
    Good enough, thanks!
- threeseed 6y ago
  Would recommend the Ahrefs videos: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWquNQV8Y0_defMKnGKrFOQ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWquNQV8Y0_defMKnGKrFOQ Obviously they will push their product but it is very good and popular within the SEO space. My suggestion is just to write good content that strengthens your brand and can be shared across multiple channels e.g. SEO, WhitePaper, Linkedin etc.
  - StavrosK 6y ago
    That's very helpful, thank you!
- numlock86 6y ago
  > Can you very quickly summarize the basics here? Once you found out, make a post with the title "10 keywords to get you up in SEO and how to use them". That's basically how the meta of SEO marketing works these days. Errr, I meant "this guy uses one simple trick and SEO marketers hate him [read more]" ...
tedmcory77 6y ago
Have you read “Traction” by the founder of DuckDuckGo? It’s perfect for startups such as yourself.
caogecym 6y ago
Doc content [1] discovered via search engine has been a reliable source of new users for my recent published SaaS app. No SEO yet, already got 1 new registered user per week (haha don’t laugh at the small number). And a good day last week got 3 new, which is a pleasant surprise. Should keep doing this content stuff! One nice thing for acquiring users from search engine is that many people already know what they want, when they see a product fit, many would become a returned user. [1] https://ihook.us/docs/check-nintendo-switch-availability https://ihook.us/docs/check-nintendo-switch-availability
ttty 6y ago
Imo you should never start with seo because it's expensive, takes ages for you to rank. I'd just spend a few hundred dollars on a adwords campaign. You know which keywords actually converts to paid users and then you can invest in your seo campaign. If you just do seo you have no clue what keywords convert (unless all seo traffic is from 1 keyword alone)
z3t4 6y ago
Content is not enough. You need inbound links. Getting links was much easier before when people ran their own blogs - they would link to content they thought was good.
dunkelheit 6y ago
Your product is already useful for a single isolated user. In contrast, apps such as tinder are essentially useless without a sizable existing user base. I'd imagine getting first users for a product that relies on network effects is on a completely different difficulty level.
- sweeneyrod 6y ago
  My experience is that it's easier than you might expect if you're doing things right (you have an interesting product and low-friction signup process). I recently started a university-specific dating app and had no trouble getting the first few hundred users, even with the actual matching functionality turned off.
  - GrumpyNl 6y ago
    Free users for a dating is no problem, monetizing them is another ball game.
    - alixanderwang 6y ago
      https://www.failory.com/interview/cuddli https://www.failory.com/interview/cuddli Interview from someone who had a problem with the way dating apps monetize, created a competing dating app with all features free, and then shut down because he couldn't monetize.
    - sweeneyrod 6y ago
      Yes definitely, it's just a side project that I don't plan on monetising. I don't think there's a good way of doing it, the incentives are just misaligned.

lennysan 6y ago

I've come across a few other startups that got started this way, but from this research it was interesting to see that wasn't big for any of the biggest consumer apps. Since you've got a SaaS product, (hopefully) you'll be happy to hear I'm doing a follow-up looking at how the fastest growing SaaS companies got started.

gauravphoenix 6y ago

Thank you for posting the comment, now that I know about your service, I am going to sign-up. So not just blog post, a mere (but meaningful) comment can get you paid users.

lennysan 6y ago
What a beautiful HN success story
alixanderwang 6y ago
Hah thanks. Despite my self-deprecation at my blog posts, the product itself I'm extremely proud of. Hope you find it useful.

kartayyar 6y ago

How did you get inbound links for your initial blog content?

alixanderwang 6y ago
I post them on HackerNoon, which has a "originally published at" backlink. They tweet the ones with good engagement repeatedly, people shared those tweets. It makes its way into roundups and newsletters. Occasionally, people steal them and say they authored it, but they leave the backlinks so whatever. I post some on relevant forums as well.
- kartayyar 6y ago
  Thanks. Though don't many forums treat links as nofollow and thus don't contribute to page rank?

StavrosK 6y ago

Can you very quickly summarize the basics here? How do you find which keywords to target, how do you include them in your content, what's good SEO hygiene, what wordcount do you need, etc? Basically, I'm not really aware of how you do SEO marketing, and would like to learn.

alixanderwang 6y ago
I basically just read this to learn: https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/01/24/startup-seo/ https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/01/24/startup-seo/ and watch patio11's talks on microconf. I don't feel like qualified enough to give advice (also these are short term results, they say SEO takes ~6 months to yield results), so you should refer to his stuff.
- StavrosK 6y ago
  Good enough, thanks!
threeseed 6y ago
Would recommend the Ahrefs videos: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWquNQV8Y0_defMKnGKrFOQ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWquNQV8Y0_defMKnGKrFOQ Obviously they will push their product but it is very good and popular within the SEO space. My suggestion is just to write good content that strengthens your brand and can be shared across multiple channels e.g. SEO, WhitePaper, Linkedin etc.
- StavrosK 6y ago
  That's very helpful, thank you!
numlock86 6y ago
> Can you very quickly summarize the basics here? Once you found out, make a post with the title "10 keywords to get you up in SEO and how to use them". That's basically how the meta of SEO marketing works these days. Errr, I meant "this guy uses one simple trick and SEO marketers hate him [read more]" ...

tedmcory77 6y ago

Have you read “Traction” by the founder of DuckDuckGo? It’s perfect for startups such as yourself.

caogecym 6y ago

Doc content [1] discovered via search engine has been a reliable source of new users for my recent published SaaS app. No SEO yet, already got 1 new registered user per week (haha don’t laugh at the small number). And a good day last week got 3 new, which is a pleasant surprise. Should keep doing this content stuff! One nice thing for acquiring users from search engine is that many people already know what they want, when they see a product fit, many would become a returned user. [1] https://ihook.us/docs/check-nintendo-switch-availability https://ihook.us/docs/check-nintendo-switch-availability

ttty 6y ago

Imo you should never start with seo because it's expensive, takes ages for you to rank. I'd just spend a few hundred dollars on a adwords campaign. You know which keywords actually converts to paid users and then you can invest in your seo campaign. If you just do seo you have no clue what keywords convert (unless all seo traffic is from 1 keyword alone)

z3t4 6y ago

Content is not enough. You need inbound links. Getting links was much easier before when people ran their own blogs - they would link to content they thought was good.

dunkelheit 6y ago

Your product is already useful for a single isolated user. In contrast, apps such as tinder are essentially useless without a sizable existing user base. I'd imagine getting first users for a product that relies on network effects is on a completely different difficulty level.

sweeneyrod 6y ago
My experience is that it's easier than you might expect if you're doing things right (you have an interesting product and low-friction signup process). I recently started a university-specific dating app and had no trouble getting the first few hundred users, even with the actual matching functionality turned off.
- GrumpyNl 6y ago
  Free users for a dating is no problem, monetizing them is another ball game.
  - alixanderwang 6y ago
    https://www.failory.com/interview/cuddli https://www.failory.com/interview/cuddli Interview from someone who had a problem with the way dating apps monetize, created a competing dating app with all features free, and then shut down because he couldn't monetize.
  - sweeneyrod 6y ago
    Yes definitely, it's just a side project that I don't plan on monetising. I don't think there's a good way of doing it, the incentives are just misaligned.