HN Explorer

Ask HN: Where did your most passionate users come from?

4 points by megamark16 ↗ HN
So my project is coming along nicely, I'm burning through the big ol' to do list of things I feel really need to be in a first release, accepting some beta users (not many are inquiring). So I'm wondering how did you find your most passionate users, or how did they find you? I've heard that they'll often be some of your first (early adapters and all)?

7 comments

[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 25.6 ms ] thread
nudge
They won't search you out. You need to go out and grab their attention. What is your project?
megamark16
Yeah, that's what I've come to realize. So how did everyone find their most passionate users? Were they people that you already knew? Friends and family? Made up? I remember the reddit guys saying once in an interview that they had a bunch of fake accounts that they used to post stories to reddit with all day long to keep the activity going and give the appearance of a lot of users.

My project is http://AppRabbit.com, a database web app builder.

nudge
I did not know that about reddit! I had wondered how sites which depend on so much user participation get started. Now I know they cheat ;)

Anyway maybe you need to define more clearly what you want? What is a 'passionate' user? Your app doesn't appear to be social, so you don't need to create the illusion of popularity on-site, like reddit. Do you want evangelists, people going out and blogging about how great your app is?

I don't really know how to bring that about. Just make the best damn thing you can and then politely inform bloggers you read about it. If you look at the balsamiq (a mockup program) website there is a post on how the guy approached bloggers at the start.

I quite like the Steve Martin approach: "be so good they can't ignore you". Naively, I kind of think that if you make something great, that really solves a problem for people, they will want to share that with others.

So... I guess the answer is for you to very clearly define who you are helping, what problem you are helping them solve, and then approach them. By way of friendly criticism, your site could probably do with a better front page, in terms of a very quick explanation of what it is and why a reader might care. Some good examples:

http://rethinkdb.com/ http://basecamphq.com/

One question for you to think about (in general, but especially for the front page) would be who would need to implement a database but would not want or be able to do it themselves.

oziumjinx
Think about who would use/buy your program. Then find the sites they read. Then reach out to those sites/bloggers and give them a sneak peak, free license, beta invites for their users, etc.

It might help to be an active member of some of those sites first before soliciting feedback.

oziumjinx
Also, create a screencast of using your app then upload it to youtube and tag it with appropriate keywords. You'll be surprised at the number of other videos that will end up auto-linking to it on their youtube sidebar and at the end of their videos.
imp
I've had success with domain-specific forums. If your product really is something that people can get passionate about and you present your website in a non-spammy way, there's a chance that you'll get initial traffic and then eventually the members will spread the word about your site to other forums they're members of.

For your project, I would suggest having a no-signup live demo that they can use right away. No one will get passionate about a landing page. That might be useful for gaging interest and collecting emails, but if you can't solve someone's problem on their first visit (or at least make it clear how you could) then it's going to be hard to turn them into a passionate user.