How we Went from Zero Audience to Over a Thousand Beta Signups
medium.com
medium.com
Good post but I'm curious about this. You are already working on two products which haven't launched - why did you decide to add a third task of writing a book? Would it not have been better to launch the products, see if those signups converted to users, and then write the book?
But since it is just the two of us, and I'm the only one who can work on backend code, Joelle has some open time. She is doing much of the early work on the book while I push product (currently focusing more on Minimalytics to get the first beta open).
As for waiting to see if the signups convert to users...I think that has more to do with the traffic sources versus the techniques being taught in the book. I wouldn't want to wait months when the inspiration has already struck and is fresh :-)
And re: YouTube...I watch plenty of YouTube videos by people I would never give my email address to. I also give my email to alot of people I would never buy from. It's a numbers game.
And 1,100 email addresses is a huge number for us, and for many people who have fewer than that on their list. We spent years wondering how to build a list of engaged folks, so when we hit on something that resonated...we knew it was a big deal :-)
It's also a lot of validation that the core concept he communicated is worth pursuing. If he put up a landing page, promoted it, and got no email addresses, that would be a signal in the other direction.
1,100 email addresses from people to volunteered them in response to your idea is nothing to shake a stick at, especially in such a short period of time.
And frankly, most pages built that early in the process are awful considering all the unknowns.
As for traffic, we initially got retweeted a couple times by people with a few thousand followers in the design space. Both products also were on news.layervault.com as a result for some time, as well as BetaList a bit later on.
Our conversion rate to beta signups is around 30%. We've had nowhere near 10,000 or even 100,000 visits.
It was much easier than we thought it would be.
I would say that we could've driven more traffic to the site and increased the absolute conversions while lowering the conversion rate BUT I'm comfortable with having our beta site a little more hidden than say a general marketing splash page.
My two cents are that if you have a compelling product, your beta launch page is a pretty trivial commitment and you should expect conversion rates much higher than Ecommerce. 30% is not unreasonable if you're not spamming. If you're spamming, 10% is achievable but hard.
Traffic sources: Our Portal, Twitter, Launchrock virality. I have to say the Launchrock virality techniques worked much better than I thought they would. It made my job as a marketer much easier.
I wish more blogs would include the "luck" details in their success posts. It's practically lying to say that all that happened was that you tweeted to ~100 followers. I'm not trying to criticize, it's just an interesting bit that makes the startup sound much more down-to-earth when they're willing to admit where they got their luck from.
Because let's not forget: all success is due to some luck, and that's sometimes the most interesting part of the story.
I'm familiar with the lean startup gospel. I find it too neat; it's too close to the protestant work ethic to be believable. I'd like to hear more about the "luck", grease, handshakes and other details that don't fit into the usual startup narrative.
*edit: Not to take away from any of what you've done or the product, just curious as to how big just her network effect is at this point, vs really having 'no following'.
And following her playbook pretty closely (or seemingly so).
Did you consider that doing a startup with your boyfriend/girlfriend might be a bad idea? Startups are hard enough on co-founder friends and non-involved SOs/spouses. It seems your situation adds more possible bad/awkward outcomes.
I'm curious if you guys discussed this at all (not that it's any of my business of course).
When it came time to decide whether or not we should work together, we weren't really worried about it.
It's turned out amazingly well. But we can handle being around each other ALL DAY most days. That won't work for everyone, I guess.
But I'm glad I didn't blindly avoid it based on the advice of the masses (which is usually wrong/naïve).
:-)
But after reading it, here is what I really want to know: what does "a few tweets" mean? I know many people (myself included) who have tried to "kick out a few tweets" and did not get 1000 email signups quickly. My belief is you are writing it because it makes a better story, and puts emphasis on your design. But is it true?
How did the tweets get out to that many people in your target audience? Do you have many followers? Did an influential person retweet it? If so, was it a friend or an unplanned retweet? I'd love to hear more about this side of the story.
We later got on BetaList which drove about 300 signups and a bunch of traffic to each product. That was easy, just submitted the site, and eventually got included.
I think all of that traffic converted better than usual thanks to solid design, and good communication of the core value of each product via showing, and not telling with a dry headline :-)
I'm in the process of trying to drive initial traffic to the Soulmix private beta (http://www.soulmix.com), so this is helpful. I would love to see more people say exactly what they did to drive traffic at the early stages of site. Bloggers often make it sound trivial, but I'm not sure that is true.
I didn't register that Minimalytic or Hookfeed were new projects and independent startups until the end, and still had to double check and then saw the very small text that mentioned "Small HQ".
I interpreted the project names as being cute names for projects within Medium, not the product of an external company.
It's a strange thing when the content screams "Medium" more than it screams the content. I suspect it has a lot more to do with the design consistency and experience rather than the words.
That doesn't make the information not useful/inspiring. Most of what I do, I learned from other people who chose to share that info.
And most of the people I follow...I originally discovered thanks to them sharing/selling content based on their learnings. I see nothing wrong with the way the industry works.
Our first attempt was following the accepted format for landing pages... 1. Pick a headline 2. Take some screenshots 3. Write about benefits
But we realized that wasn't compelling enough.
You could have the best headline in the world, backed by a solid design, and it still wouldn't communicate in the same way as an example/demo/animation of functionality.
Cheers, @mattgoldman_sd
I think a bit of jQuery and a clever explanation can achieve much more in the early stages.
We will likely convert single digits to paying customers. That doesn't mean we won't work our butts off to get the beta in front of as many ppl as possible...
On both landing pages you get a really quick idea of what the product is about (without having to read any text).
It took me a few more seconds to understand HookFeed, but once I saw the feed updating (the animation) I instantly understood.
The best way to increase your chances of luck? Work smart, work hard and keep showing up.
We've been working on product for a very long time, and things didn't start to click until we started being social and talking to others in the industry, helping others out and getting helped out.
Much of the sharing that took place around our products came out of a few new relationships with others. We made an effort to meet new people, so I wouldn't exactly call that luck...
The more we show up, and participate, including writing...the more traction we get. It's amazing how easy it's been once some momentum kicked in!
I would recommend it if the two products are similar.
Also, we have the choice to context-switch and work on what we are most passionate about on any given day.