How to get publicity for a startup?

Start a blog, start slagging your competitors, back it up with actually being better than your competitors. The tech blogs love a good mud fight.

Sorry if this is too obvious, but how about ads? They seem pretty cheap now. Especially if you're doing a startup that actually charges money.

And yes, word of mouth. You'll find the first users among your friends, HN and reddit.

I'm still not 100% sure on which question you would like us to answer because, at first you ask:

     What is the process of getting publicity for a startup without any connections or investors to help? 

However, you then go on about how,

    users are needed first

I'm not sure which question you would like answering - how to get publicity or how to get users because, whilst the two are connected in that publicity can bring users it doesn't necessarily mean they will.

However, if you want a TON of publicity then just do something that will get you noticed for instance, just look at how Richard Branson does publicity for some of his brands - http://www.businessday.com.au/small-business/smallbiz-market...

Likewise, if you want a users then there are loads of methods of doing it and although you don't want us to mention it "word of mouth" is the BEST form of publicity & user signups

Nevertheless, if you can clarify which one you would like answering I'll gladly help and I'm sure the rest of HN wouldn't mind helping either. Moreover, if you can mention what your startup does or even the industry its in, we can be a little more specific because, there's no point telling you to reach out of X, Y and Z if they won't get you the users you need :)

As a former PR professional, I can tell you that publicity can be bought. Good publicity however, can't. A post on TechCrunch/Mashable/Wired/whatever is infinitely more valuable than a facebook ad alone. Having said that, you should develop a strategy that involves both paid and free publicity. If you set up a guerilla marketing campaign, an advertising campaign and a free publicity campaign they will fortify each other. Someone sees your facebook ad, and a litte while later reads an article about your startup on TechCrunch. A few days later he sees your brilliant guerrilla marketing thing, hears from other people that they've signed up and signs up himself.

There is no single way of getting publicity, no silver bullet. It's a snowball effect, several small pebbles thrown in the right spot at the right time will cause an avalanche.

And yes, you should post on HN first.

If it was an easy, solved problem then I could probably fire my non-technical cofounder.

This is something that requires significant creativity to do well. One of the biggest problems today is not getting your message out there - we have more channels than ever before for that - but rather getting your signal-to-noise ratio high enough that you're not lost in the background.

A good trick is simply to always be making connections about the brand. Most of them will have a small overall contribution to brand awareness, but they can be meaningful in aggregate and there will be a few contacts which generate a large payoff.

The best way to get the best publicity is to have an incredible product that people need to hear about.

But failing that or having a less revolutionary product, I would highly recommend blogging, whatever your start-up you must have interesting insights and tips about your industry that you could share.

If your not committed to regular, high quality blogging and for many founders that doesn't fit into their skill-sets then think about creating one time big research reports that would shake the industry or provide some highly valuable new information.

Blogging and reports are perfect for a start-up because there is virtually no cash cost, so if your bootstrapping or just playing it smart then these are my top two.

Start by being very clear in you mind _who_ the target of your product is, or your reason for publicity. HN/TechCrunch won't help you much if you are targeting Accountants or Moms. For a startup you generally want to have a sustainable, differentiable, competitive advantage. Pick one key part of the 'what's different/new', and pitch or place that point with bloggers, online groups, editors, etc, who are focused on your target as an audience. Overly simplified, but doesn't require pre-existing network, just doing outreach to those that might have interest in exploring 'what's new' with you.

1. Create great stories about your startup and product.

2. Develop a list of media contacts.

3. Follow what the contacts on your list write about.

4. Look for connections between their stories and your stories.

5. When you find these connections, pitch the story.

If you've done steps 1-4 correctly, you'll find step 5 easy.