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> During that period, there were 24,826 first time visitors to any of our sites who we could identify as having first gotten to us via Hacker News (in all, we r
by cs702 15y ago
> During that period, there were 24,826 first time visitors to any of our sites who we could identify as having first gotten to us via Hacker News (in all, we received more like 105,000 unique visitors from Hacker News, but many of those were repeat visitors). 97 of those visitors signed up, with more than 85% of them electing the free plan.
Left unsaid: how many of the 105,000 unique HN visitors are customers?
Also left unsaid (but harder to quantify): how many of those 105,000 HN visitors are influencers who have referred 37 Signal products to others? (FWIW, I know of at least half a dozen teams who've signed up for BaseCamp paid accounts as a result of my recommendation.)
[ UPDATE: In response to subsequent comments below, I've created a poll here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3680400 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3680400 ]
- ryan_f 15y agoVery true statement! I've been a customer for a long time now and I also have recommended it to many clients. As I am sure a lot more have. I am curious what the answer would be in a poll.
- sophacles 15y agoAlso consider: I personally don't use BaseCamp. I am not a big fan of it, and I feel that me needs are better met in different ways. However, I recognize it as a good tool for people whose workflow matches BaseCamp use (or could easily do so), and thus suggest it to people. I'm sure I am not alone in this on HN. The only reason I even know about BaseCamp is HN frontpage posts. I wonder how a general awareness of the product's existence amongst influential geeks has driven their sales.
- ohashi 15y agoThey talk about word of mouth and the benefit of all the extra links. And then they discount the value in the next thought. Word of mouth = great links = great hackernews popularity = no value That's a pretty big hole in their logic.
- astine 15y agoAt any given moment there's probably a vanishingly small number of HN news readers who are unfamiliar with who 37Signals are. So I suspect that for them, gaining the front page on HN is less profitable than gaining traction in nearly any other community. As such, writing interesting stuff that is appealing to a broad base of communities is more profitable for them than tailoring their posts to get on the HN front page. My supposition; but really, what ethical difference does it make? If the HN community likes to read the 37Signals viral marketing material then I suppose we all gain, right?