Ask HN: Is contacting a startup's users for feedback impressive or creepy? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Is contacting a startup's users for feedback impressive or creepy?

10 pointsZaneClaes10 comments

A few weeks ago, I decided to start emailing users of our app for feedback with a personal message from me (the founder of our little startup). By and large, the feedback has been very useful; many people are impressed at the personal attention. However, this morning, I received the first bit of negative feedback about this practice, calling it "creepy."

Do you think that such personal emailing is a good or bad practice? Are there better ways to engage users in a dialogue? We all know how hard it is to get real, honest information from users when we have such a small sample size.

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1. Include it in the terms of service.

2. Depends on the product. If you sell anything that is considered to be hush, then don't. [personal massagers, married dating circles, etc.]

3. In general, people don't mind hearing from you. Though don't email them weekly, unless they subscribed to a weekly newsletter. Once every 3 weeks has proved to be a good start for me.

4. Make the emails personal, and answer them. The aim is to talk to people, not sell them something outright.

5. Resist the temptation to upsell. Why? People will then think that you are just emailing them to squeeze more money out of them. Having an email address like so: sales@startup.com, makes things easy. If anyone has an interest in buying, just tell them that someone from the sales department will contact them. Then send an email from that address and continue the dialogue.

I personally don't find it creepy at all, however, it may depend on how your site privacy policies are setup and what kind of product it is. I could possible see how some people may not want to be offended, although I wouldn't classify that under "creepy", but just more of "don't want to be bothered."

Maybe, if they have an account page for the startup, add something in their settings that says "opt in for email feedback" (that's bad phrasing, but you know what I mean) so you know which users are okay with giving back feedback and don't mind being contacted.

Its super tempting! But, I would err on the side of perceiving it as creepy, as really it only takes one creeped out user to generate some bad publicity. Also, depends on what your privacy policy is. Perhaps the best way to do this would be to disclose at time of sign up that during your "beta" period you may reach out to them directly? Set the expectation at least, so it doesn't feel like an invasion.

The idea of using "beta" language is interesting. It sounds like a big part of managing expectations is how big the users think the startup is. As they think it's bigger, they expect less attention... for better or for worse.

I think it's a great practice. We've received some of the most valuable feedback for matchist (https://matchist.com/talent) from our users by simply asking.

You'd be surprised at how many people are willing to give honest feedback when you personally email them and let them know you're completely open to their honest opinion.

I personally think it is a great idea. The hardest part is making the email look genuine and not like a mass email. We used this tactic at my last startup and quickly found out that our assumptions about our audience were very false, and we quickly pivoted which avoided a long drawn-out period of time failing.

That's exactly how I feel about it. We've gotten some great feedback, and I attribute it exactly to the fact that the email is personalized, and includes an introduction to me.

I am doing this right now and I am not sure how my users perceive it, as I had no responses so far.

Would you mind share how you phrased your email? I think the copy is the key to how users perceive it.

I did this on one site of mine. I sent the signup confirmation from my real email account at the company and made it a personal letter from me welcoming them, while at the same time being an automated form letter (and not trying to disguise that fact). I mentioned that if they had any questions they could just reply to this email and then I signed the email with "Regards, <myname>". The site wasn't very big and it's now getting no attention from me, but of the hundred or 2 who signed up, a few responded.

The email was basically:

Hi <username>,

Welcome to the site! To confirm your email click this link: <link>

We've just launched this site and are working on developing new features now. If you have any feedback or comments, just reply to this email. It would be a delight to hear from you.

Regards,

<name>

Founder & CEO

I've had great success with honest personal emails to every new customer. It helps build trust, which, at least in my case, has been extremely valuable.

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