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I tried to launch my app marketing tool twice, to no avail. First I posted a link to the site itself (appmarketingtool.com), a few days later to my blog post ab

by Avalaxy 14y ago

I tried to launch my app marketing tool twice, to no avail. First I posted a link to the site itself (appmarketingtool.com), a few days later to my blog post about it (http://leoncullens.nl/post/2013/04/13/Windows-8-app-marketing-tool.aspx http://leoncullens.nl/post/2013/04/13/Windows-8-app-marketin...). Both stories were only upvoted by a friend of mine. I can't figure out why... A lot of submissions that reach the frontpage took only a few days to build/write, I've been working on this with my friend for 2 months.

cmdkeen 14y ago
Did you use any other networks to link to the story? Did you tweet the HN url? Or post it to social media? Did you email anyone who you follow/respect and ask them to share their thoughts - with the HN thread linked? Your make it sound like you just added to HN with a single upvote and hoped it would rise from the noise.
- Avalaxy 14y ago
  You're right, I didn't do those things. I don't know many people with a HN account. I got a few stories to the frontpage before by just submitting them, so I figured that would do the trick.
MehdiEG 14y ago
If you believe that success if proportional to the amount of time you dedicated to the project, brace yourself for a very cruel disappointment. This is just not how it works in startup-land, sorry :) But don't obsess about trying to crack a big-bang launch. Big-bang launches are the ones we all hear about. But they're the exception rather than the rule. And they're not necessarily a good thing (remember Color?). Far more startups become successful the old-fashioned way: by getting one customer at a time over weeks, months and years. In your case, you've got the ideal business for this: you've got a very niche product aimed at a fairly small, well-defined and reasonably easy-to-reach audience. So forget about getting to the front page of HN, TechCrunch or other startup hipster places. Just go and get your customers: - contribute to discussion forums about windows development and have your product in your signature. Promote it there if allowed - reach out to relevant bloggers - attend local Windows developer meetups. Some have open-mic opportunities for local startups to promote themselves. - join BizSpark and see if Microsoft would be interested in helping - experiment with a few Google Adwords campaigns - ...

by Avalaxy 14y ago

cmdkeen 14y ago

Did you use any other networks to link to the story? Did you tweet the HN url? Or post it to social media? Did you email anyone who you follow/respect and ask them to share their thoughts - with the HN thread linked? Your make it sound like you just added to HN with a single upvote and hoped it would rise from the noise.

Avalaxy 14y ago
You're right, I didn't do those things. I don't know many people with a HN account. I got a few stories to the frontpage before by just submitting them, so I figured that would do the trick.

MehdiEG 14y ago

If you believe that success if proportional to the amount of time you dedicated to the project, brace yourself for a very cruel disappointment. This is just not how it works in startup-land, sorry :) But don't obsess about trying to crack a big-bang launch. Big-bang launches are the ones we all hear about. But they're the exception rather than the rule. And they're not necessarily a good thing (remember Color?). Far more startups become successful the old-fashioned way: by getting one customer at a time over weeks, months and years. In your case, you've got the ideal business for this: you've got a very niche product aimed at a fairly small, well-defined and reasonably easy-to-reach audience. So forget about getting to the front page of HN, TechCrunch or other startup hipster places. Just go and get your customers: - contribute to discussion forums about windows development and have your product in your signature. Promote it there if allowed - reach out to relevant bloggers - attend local Windows developer meetups. Some have open-mic opportunities for local startups to promote themselves. - join BizSpark and see if Microsoft would be interested in helping - experiment with a few Google Adwords campaigns - ...