One of the lessons of every startup or application, is it is not always clear how to find the population of interest, and that it will take trying out many aven

One of the lessons of every startup or application, is it is not always clear how to find the population of interest, and that it will take trying out many avenues, methods, and channels, again and again, to discover or grow the community of interest. Perhaps the market niche is not compelling enough for people to use. Or you're finding a population that doesn't have a compelling desire or need. It appears you hope for an almost obsessive population to be your desired market. (I'm thinking of the legendary Grateful Dead concert tape trading era as an example of an obsessive trading population and community.) Are there additional potential markets for trading person-to-person that have an unmet need that might have a compelling payoff for you to serve? I notice that there is some similarity in function to the Craig's List and eBay and Amazon markets -- are they inadvertent competitors? Is community trust, and trust building, or trustworthiness measurement an issue? What if I want to search by genre, or by other kinds of dimensions, and not by publisher? Does there need to be a forum for the obsessed? The site looks like a storefront, not a community coffee shop to hang out in. Could it be worthwhile to contact one-hundred-plus signups personally, hoping for an informative conversation. What other means and methods do people use if not your application? What do they like about your app? What do they find lacking? Is the community big enough to serve the population you desire? Are you capable of contacting every new sign-up for a while to learn what new signups think? Could it be worthwhile to have a friendly and informative process (email?) that contacts signups perhaps once a week, during their first weeks, or first month, to remind them of their interest and your offering? Does this essay give any useful perspectives for you? (Paul Graham's "Do things that don't scale") http://paulgraham.com/ds.html http://paulgraham.com/ds.html