Hacker News Reader

Comment by lobotryas | Hacker News Reader

It can be a working strategy if you're building a lifestyle business and don't care about hockey-stick growth or making millions.

I'm an armchair entrepreneur for now (just getting that out of the way), but the advice I've seen over and over again can be generalized as: "Go out and talk to peope". You'll want to avoid starting with a sales pitch. Instead, talk to them about their business (or life) and see if your product is a fit (ie: don't try to sell a social network for cats to a dog owner). If it seems like there's some product fit, ask how they are filling the need now. If appropriate, give the the elevator pitch and a 1min demo on your live product. Ideally, convert them by having them sign up for a trial right then and there on your computer, followed by walking them through the COOLEST thing they can do on your product.

Rinse, repeat.

That's my 2 cents. Also interested what others think.

View on HN

I don't think it is a working strategy ever, to be honest. What you usually want to get decent returns is not necessarily hockey-stick growth (unless the game is to impress investors but this usually leads to questions of gaming the system). What you want is decent, modest, exponential growth (when you are small your growth can approach exponential levels, but when you are big you have problems keeping it up, due to the fact that most growth in a finite market will resemble a sigmoid in shape -- this is also why big companies can't successfully innovate).

Getting out and taking to people, as you say, is where it is at, regardless of your business goals. Start with the three F's of fundraising (friends, family, fools) and go from there. Posting on Reddit and HN is good to create discussion or buzz, but it won't by itself get you sales.

Another thing I would recommend is that you do two things:

1. Write a marketing plan. Talk about the market, who you are going for, and how you will reach them. Discuss both PR and advertising, as well as other forms of outreach. Review it, write it as a team. Get everyone on the same page.

2. Then once that is done, put it on the shelf and don't look at it for a year. Act as if the plan doesn't exist. Go out and promote your product. Come back in a year and compare what you did and what you accomplished to what you set out in the plan.

If appropriate, give the the elevator pitch and a 1min demo on your live product.

I want to point out the the above snippet assumes/implies a fairly deep knowledge of your intended audience, the problem space you are working in and several other things, any one of which might be the real problem as to why the OP is not getting traction.

Not a criticism. Just ...an elaboration, I guess.

I think if you want to be successful you need to have good knowledge about your audience. Maybe not when you are first starting out, but you should when you have a product to sell.

You won't be a good golf club salesman if you know absolutely nothing about golf.

That's part of my point. We don't know where the OP is coming from though in terms of how well he/she knows the problem space, etc. If they don't know it well enough, perhaps pointing this out will help them.

If potential customers tell you there's an issue with your approach, that's extremely valuable too.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com