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What are some of the "shady" tactics tried while building your startup?

1 points by dloh ↗ HN
What are some of the "shady" tactics which you had tried earlier while building your startup?<p>Some examples such as how Reddit was able to get new users by creating fake accounts to simulate an active community during their early days.

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kellros
Creating content yourself to attract visitors (fake content from other users' perspective) has been common practice to get user generated content websites off the ground.

Perhaps you are referring to 'bussiness tactics' vs. shady tactics like using a botnet to distribute ads/sign up users.

One shady tactic I know of is some time-sharing network I saw where they created accounts for celebrities where users bought their time - and they never signed up.

Best shady tactic is being passionate about what you do and examine how it would benefit someone else - and then approach those people and talk about your idea (including strangers).

Usually targetting popular minds/people tends to get more attention.