Ask HN: How would you get traffic for a new startup?

7 points·imjonathanlee··8 comments

What methods do you use to get new users for your startups? Facebook, twitter, SEO, Paid Ads, ...?

It's impossible to talk about getting traffic without specifying what type of product you have. Is it a paid downloadable app, SAAS webapp, social network, etc?

Most forms of paid advertising aren't cost effective unless you have a very direct way to convert traffic quickly into money and have pretty high margins.

I'm asking in general what methods are available. What methods do you use for your startup, not mine. I personally use facebook, twitter and close friends and family to promote traffic to.

"What methods do you use to get traffic for your startup" would have been a better title.

Just posted on Quora about a similar topic.

Here's what we did to launch Meeps:

http://blog.meeps.com/post/4588034501/bb

Got quite a lot of buzz and traction because it was something unique that tied into our core concept.

That's a very interesting idea. I think a lot of startups would consider personal engagement at this level to be out of the question, but I'm going to seriously consider this approach (or a distant variation) for our beta launch.

I don't know if I would recommend this but here is an article on generating traffic...

http://news.nucleusdevelopment.com/2011/01/08/the-fool-proof...

What is the startup?

there isn't one. It's just a general question. The specific question lies on what you personally use for your own startups. Just seeing what the most popular choices are.

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