justiceforsaas

That's the problem with writing on a "first-class" publication. They won't allow you to cover the "dirty stuff" (what? posting on a stupid classifieds website? Let's talk about the beauty of SEO/AdWords/beautiful viral growth graphs...)

Wow, 7 years. Talk about persistence. I'm not really into violins (I play a piano, and have an ear for music so it takes me <10 minutes to hear something & play it). Seems it's the TOTAL opposite with a violin, and really appreciated that correction comment!

Hey man, I just included the link so people can see I'm not BSing and that I really spent a lot of time doing research into this. I didn't expect people to sign up & analyze my report. I'll release an enhanced report tomorrow or so and update everyone who signed up. If you want just reply to the email where I sent the PDF and I'll send you the enhanced version.

This research is more oriented towards founders who are currently working on their startups/businesses. I plan to release further information on each of these acquisition channels and that's why I asked for an email. Plus, I think it's fair to ask for an email if you're distributing something that took 2 years to summarize.

Yeah, my point was to demonstrate the whole "curse of knowledge" principle, and something like "photography" would be more suitable. Edited the comment. This is why I love HN, you guys tear apart every single thing ;))

Glad you liked it. Working on this as we speak. To be honest I didn't expect people to sign up lol, but since I'm seeing some interest in this, I'll spend some time and do an enhanced version & release it within the next 2-3 days & update everyone who signed up.

I've spent the last 2 years researching what acquisition channels work consistently for founders [1] by reading over 500 founder interviews. I PURPOSELY avoid unicorn/"big corp" case studies/interviews (like the ones mentioned in the article) because of 2 main reasons:

1) They are almost useless to new founders. These companies were in their "early days" 6-10 years ago, back when MySpace was still a thing. Although you may learn some "timeless lessons" from them, you'll learn WAY MORE by reading from someone who's currently 2 steps ahead of you vs 100.

2) The curse of knowledge. In general, a photographer who spent 1 year learning how to take good pictures will prob. teach you in a more understandable/actionable way than someone who spent 10 years doing that. The reason is simple: They still remember how it was like to be in your position (beginning) vs. someone who's now focused on TOTALLY different things and forgot the beginner's mentality.

[1] https://firstpayingusers.com