patrickambron

Just to be clear: You were asked to share your link after every step in the boosting process?? It should just be your final boost step, which you can choose to do or not. Looking into this now

Haha, much appreciated man. I think our profile is more personal than a LinkedIn, but we also provide something they don't. You can submit any link about you (LinkedIn, personal website, article written about you, etc) track it's ranking, and walk you through everything you can do to make it more search engine friendly so it ranks higher for your name

Yea absolutely. We track everything through our own internal system and through analytics. We want to know where our best users come from. Which sources get people to sign up, which sources bring the most active people, and which sources lead to the most subscriptions. It helps you focus your marketing/PR efforts.

Yes, users can pay for premium features (free users can submit, track and boost up to 3 links, paying members can boost unlimited) With our model we hope 2% convert to paid at some point in their Lifetime as a user.

In terms of this push, most of the major US press has been a phenomenal source (which was the bulk of this surge). 2-3% converted in the first 24 hours, and by 8 weeks that number was closer to 5%. Mashable by far being the best, followed by Huff Post

BrandYourself profiles were/are another amazing source. This makes sense too, because it's coming from a trusted source.

Google and Direct isn't quite as strong (which makes sense since the sources are so varied) but we still get above the 2% mark by 4-5 weeks

The signups from foreign publications were pretty bad. They signed up for free at high rates, but they just don't pay (.5%). Not entirely sure why, but until we figure it out, we put people from those places on a wait list

@pdx yea you nailed it. Most of our users end building a BrandYourself Profile, which is a simple (but pretty) profile that's really well structured around your name, so it generally ranks on your first page. From there we can use the IP addresses of visitors to determine who they are

We could always tell you when someone found that profile and where they came from (they came from FB, or they came from Google after Googling your name", but recently we started mapping the IP address to organizations. That data is really accesible--you can buy a list from most major hosting companies--but it's not really used for this purpose

Thanks. I think focusing on a good product is the most important thing. We do one thing really well: when someone googles your name we help you make sure you have the most relevant things showing up. In terms of Hashable, we aren't a direct replacement, but the type of people interested in networking apps generally like to make sure they look good online :)

When you're pitching a writer for the first time, I've found it's best to keep it short, focus on the story (show them the angle), and make it clear you just aren't blasting a bunch of writers. I usually try something like "Hey I'm the cofounder of BY. We just launched a product that helps people improve their own search results without having to spend thousands of dollars on a reputation firm. For example, my co-founder Pete couldn't get an internship in college because he was being mistaken for drug dealer and couldn't afford 7K to fix it. I read some of your posts on online reputation (link to them) and thought this might be a good fit. Let me know if you're interested--have plenty of details if you want to know more"

And yes, once you establish that relationship it becomes easier to tell them about an upcoming story. Even then, you want to keep it short, and focus on the story for them so the hard work is already done. "Hey, we just released a new feature. We can actually tell you when an employer googles you or finds your profile. For example, say you're interviewing at ad agencies in NYC, you might get a alert that says someone from Ogilvy just Googled your name and found your profile" We're really the only place providing this intelligence, let me know if you want more"

I really think this advice depends on the idea and the person. If I had a great idea, and more and more people kept telling me how great it was, I would be even more motivated to go out and make it happen. On the same token, if everybody told me it didn't make sense, that's the type of feedback you need to refine an idea, make it more clear, or even decide to scrap it. At some point you need some sort of outside validation or criticism

On the other end, I agree with the author it's important to spend a lot of time with your idea before you share it. 9 times out of 10 you haven't fleshed it out enough, considered all the angles before it's ready to share, and that's when an idea is really fragile

Very powerful analogy. However, with a small team I've always felt it makes sense to have one, maybe two "rafts" at a time. You need to execute something completely to know if its effective. I've found if you are splitting your time between too many rafts, they're all going to prove to be unfruitful, regardless of their potential