How I got my first thousand users | Hacker News Reader

How I got my first thousand users

indiehackers.com

118 pointsrickhaasteren27 comments

It strikes me as odd how many of these growth hacking stories describe a web analytics tool (as in the linked article), an email subscriber system, or a CMS extensions/hosting solution. Throw a rock in any direction and you'll hit 20 of these accounts.

Watching some Microconf presentations I was struck by the same thing. The talks were dominated by people who had created Wordpress plugins, created an SEO tool, or built an email autoresponder. There's a strange circularity to it - almost like a pyramid scheme.

Maybe this reflects a coincidence of interests: people who like growth hacking enough to write about it tend to create SEO tools and email drip systems.

OTOH, maybe the lessons these stories teach are too specific to be useful for other kinds of businesses.

the way i think about this is mcdonald's employees getting their oil changes from jiffy lube across the street and the jiffy lube employees eating lunch at the mcdonald's - there's no external investment in the local economy (yes this basically a microcosm for all economics).

That can't be true when so many of these small businesses have such massive margins. They're not spending the earnings on other small online businesses.

these people don't pay themselves as FTE so of course their margins are good.

That's irrelevant to above point. That they could pay themselves a salary out of earnings means there is more money going in that just what is cycling around between these sites.

no you're missing my point: they don't pay themselves at all so their margins are inflated.

Just one data point: when I recently launched a site selling custom physical products, in the first day I got 2 orders but like 10 emails from people wanting me to join various growth hacking/starup communities or list my product on their product listing sites (presumably paying to get featured). Super scuzzy.

I've seen this as well. Every growth hack article is to promote a growth-hack company. It's never been simply the means to an end for a regular company - it always ends up being part of their offering.

You're right, it all feels samey, in an uneasy way. Maybe the "How I..." ecosystem is mostly self-referential.

Fair point, you see many of these SAAS and growth hacking companies using each other's products.

I don't think SiteGuru falls in that bucket though. It's useful for a much wider audience than just growth hackers and SAAS cowboys. Anyone with a website will find some issues and improve their site.

Many of the current users are small local businesses. The lessons in the article may not be relevant for them, the tool itself is.

Maybe its more that the OSI model is a reflection of a natural, observable law regarding abstraction layers, and the more energy is applied to this law, the more the strata become tangible. Or .. not .. thus requiring attention to strengthen certain realms of the model.

Sorry I'm sending you this here, I actually found this post of yours here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9877297

I'd be thankful if you could elaborate on the process. Apparently, there's still not enough progress made in importing IPFS to iOS.

I suspect the answer is a bit of 1 and a bit of 2. I mean, if you've got a product or service aimed at webmaster/developer type users, you've got a bunch of places your audience is likely going to be reading already, like Product Hunt and Hacker News. Your users are also likely less conservative about trying out new products or services than ones in a different market might be as well, which helps a lot.

So in these cases, it makes sense these stories work out the way they do.

On the other hand, if your product is say... basket weaving equipment or gardening tools, then I suspect the people on Product Hunt and Hacker News might be a lot less interested in it, the people on social media might be a lot less interested in it and your potential users might be less willing to take a punt on an unproven business.

And obviously yes, the people who like growth hacking and SEO and online marketing in general are more likely to create products or services that reflect that.

> I started emailing bloggers in the SEO space, inviting them to try Siteguru and write about it. At the same time, I hired a linkbuilder to reach out to relevant sites that could feature my tool.

> The result? Zero. Nothing.

Ha! The number of spam emails I get, sometimes I wonder if there is actually a good product like this which might be useful but gets lost in the sea.

Edit : really nice and to the point product, found a bunch of issues with my website. Now all my broken links are fixed and the website has a favicon!

Even if I spot something interesting the fact that they spammed me creates a barrier they won't get past. It's unfortunate but it is the reality. Sending unsolicited email is a black mark now.

Really nice blog post. Regarding the free page-check without login vs requiring login; I’m not so sure it’s as clear cut as put there. Signing up for a service with significant community backing is a lot less scary/annoying than signing up for something that no one ever heard of.

Congrats to the OP, but I am assuming that these are 1000 users who are on a 'free' account? If so, I'd be interested in hearing about strategies to convert these free accounts into paid subscriptions in the future, or monetising them in some other way. I assume that is the end goal of SiteGuru? To be profitable in some way?

About 90% are on a free account, most others on a paid account through StackCommerce or similar tools.

Monetization is my next goal - and probably should have been much earlier. I'm thinking about 1 month free trials automatically converting people to a paid account after that. I would ask for their creditcard details during sign up. I'm still trying to figure out what would be the best approach.

More on that in my next post, How I Make $50 Million A Day Without Working.

This was a great post, and I learned several things. Thank you for sharing. Just a brief note that it should be “lots” not “lot’s.”

My bad, it's fixed now. Thanks!

Agreed on the sentiment though. Refreshing to read something with "just the interesting stuff" and less window dressing.

Rick, it would be nice to post an update tomorrow to see how many signups you got after being featured on HN.

35 so far. Keep 'em coming!

122 now. I'm a happy man!

Is the registered to paid ratio still 10:1?

Nice! In the sentence, "If you have any suggestions about howI can futher increase", you could put a space between how and I.

Done, thanks!

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