5 ms·

Startup founders reveal their #1 user acquisition tactic

43 points by maclover 14y ago

acgourley 14y ago
If you make a lot of money buying users, you have very little incentive to talk about it. For one, you admit you don't have something magic and irreplaceable like a well known founder or well read blog. Secondly you may give a hint to competitors about which channels or keywords of paid acquisition are working for you.
- dclusin 14y ago
  I've heard secrecy thrown about quite a bit but I've always been a bit mystified as to why. The reason I'm confused is because it seems as though any of your well healed competitors would be able to study your product/marketing/etc and determine what you are spending time and effort on to acquire customers. For instance one of the tactics mentioned in the blog is SEO/Adwords. From a competitors standpoint it seems like it would be pretty easy to reverse engineer where the company is devoting most of their money and effort into and thus their user acquisition strategy. This of course assumes the competitors are technically sophisticated. Is this assumption really that much of an exception? Meaning, for those in business, are your competitors really that stupid?
  - acgourley 14y ago
    It's hard to comprehensively study what all competitors are doing. It's probably more than most startups can afford to allocate time for, anyway. You're right it's not impossible, but what advantage do you have making it any easier? Some blog writing about your great user-buying tactics? That's still not a great song to sing, when you could be saying, "our product is so great users just come to us"
- erichocean 14y ago
  you admit you don't have something magic and irreplaceable It seems like you're dismissing businesses that can do this as somehow not innovative, which is definitely not the case. Many businesses are simply not designed as a business to benefit from growth through money (aka "buying users"). It's quite difficult to do so, even though we know it is possible, that others have done it, and that others are doing it right now. Just because something is simple does not mean it is easy.
herro256 14y ago
totally surprised nobody mentioned PPC or display advertising. Then again, none of the people asked in the article have mass market offers for consumers.
- brianfryer 14y ago
  Great point. B2B marketing can often be very different from B2C marketing.
lnanek2 14y ago
I've seen TriplePoint PR recommend buying something like 75k in ads on app launch to get into the rankings, then grow organically from there. Combined with having a bunch of reviews ready on the launch date, etc..
- stfu 14y ago
  Do you have any further information on that?
forgot_password 14y ago
I can see Buffer getting a lot of traffic via their guest posting strategy. I've seen several of their posts on HN. However, I would have a hard time imagining that these posts convert since they cover topics totally unrelated to their app. Also, I think their strategy it's generally dilutive for their brand. I recognize that startup blogs are a great way to get traffic but I'm turned off by it. Maybe I'm the only one though
bpatrianakos 14y ago
They said absolutely nothing. Blogging, make great products, and other platitudes are pretty meaningless. I am thoroughly unimpressed.
- ezl 14y ago
  i think i might have said that 1 year ago. now i feel like the secret sauce is that there is no secret sauce except working your ass off. great products and prolific blogging are hard work, but they'll get your name out there. its that slow linear growth that is frustrating, but tried and true. i'll admit i still read these with the hope of some magic silver bullet that gets rocket lease on track for exponential growth, but i haven't found it yet and i have nothing but respect for the founders that have it in them to relentlessly do PR and write blogs.
  - bpatrianakos 14y ago
    Oh I absolutely agree with you. It is hard work! And they deserve respect too. But unless this your first time reading startup advice the whole thing is just the same old generic stuff as always. Yeah, we know blogging is important but give us some specifics please.
witoldc 14y ago
For many startups, #1 tactic is to spam the hell out of the social network of your existing users. The links is laughably bad. It's just a bunch of advertising disguised as an informative post.

43 points by maclover 14y ago

If you make a lot of money buying users, you have very little incentive to talk about it. For one, you admit you don't have something magic and irreplaceable like a well known founder or well read blog. Secondly you may give a hint to competitors about which channels or keywords of paid acquisition are working for you.

dclusin 14y ago
I've heard secrecy thrown about quite a bit but I've always been a bit mystified as to why. The reason I'm confused is because it seems as though any of your well healed competitors would be able to study your product/marketing/etc and determine what you are spending time and effort on to acquire customers. For instance one of the tactics mentioned in the blog is SEO/Adwords. From a competitors standpoint it seems like it would be pretty easy to reverse engineer where the company is devoting most of their money and effort into and thus their user acquisition strategy. This of course assumes the competitors are technically sophisticated. Is this assumption really that much of an exception? Meaning, for those in business, are your competitors really that stupid?
- acgourley 14y ago
  It's hard to comprehensively study what all competitors are doing. It's probably more than most startups can afford to allocate time for, anyway. You're right it's not impossible, but what advantage do you have making it any easier? Some blog writing about your great user-buying tactics? That's still not a great song to sing, when you could be saying, "our product is so great users just come to us"
erichocean 14y ago
you admit you don't have something magic and irreplaceable It seems like you're dismissing businesses that can do this as somehow not innovative, which is definitely not the case. Many businesses are simply not designed as a business to benefit from growth through money (aka "buying users"). It's quite difficult to do so, even though we know it is possible, that others have done it, and that others are doing it right now. Just because something is simple does not mean it is easy.

herro256 14y ago

totally surprised nobody mentioned PPC or display advertising. Then again, none of the people asked in the article have mass market offers for consumers.

brianfryer 14y ago
Great point. B2B marketing can often be very different from B2C marketing.

lnanek2 14y ago

I've seen TriplePoint PR recommend buying something like 75k in ads on app launch to get into the rankings, then grow organically from there. Combined with having a bunch of reviews ready on the launch date, etc..

stfu 14y ago
Do you have any further information on that?

forgot_password 14y ago

I can see Buffer getting a lot of traffic via their guest posting strategy. I've seen several of their posts on HN. However, I would have a hard time imagining that these posts convert since they cover topics totally unrelated to their app. Also, I think their strategy it's generally dilutive for their brand. I recognize that startup blogs are a great way to get traffic but I'm turned off by it. Maybe I'm the only one though

bpatrianakos 14y ago

They said absolutely nothing. Blogging, make great products, and other platitudes are pretty meaningless. I am thoroughly unimpressed.

ezl 14y ago
i think i might have said that 1 year ago. now i feel like the secret sauce is that there is no secret sauce except working your ass off. great products and prolific blogging are hard work, but they'll get your name out there. its that slow linear growth that is frustrating, but tried and true. i'll admit i still read these with the hope of some magic silver bullet that gets rocket lease on track for exponential growth, but i haven't found it yet and i have nothing but respect for the founders that have it in them to relentlessly do PR and write blogs.
- bpatrianakos 14y ago
  Oh I absolutely agree with you. It is hard work! And they deserve respect too. But unless this your first time reading startup advice the whole thing is just the same old generic stuff as always. Yeah, we know blogging is important but give us some specifics please.

witoldc 14y ago

For many startups, #1 tactic is to spam the hell out of the social network of your existing users. The links is laughably bad. It's just a bunch of advertising disguised as an informative post.