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Ask HN: What's the best way to get users for a PAID web service?

8 points by kappaknight ↗ HN
I saw in another thread where people were discussing the best way to go from 1 to 1,000,000 users. A lot of suggestions were presented, and even more so on Quora. Some of the highlights include making it exclusive, rewarding users for inviting others, etc.

It seems like a lot of these great ideas are focused on free services where the challenge is to get people in, not so much to convince them to pull their wallet out. Since there are possibly a whole different set of challenges for paid services, what would be some great ways to get more users specifically for services where the customers would have to pay? Are there methods of acquisition that would be completely different from the free ones?

4 comments

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joelmaat
Advertise, then advertise on communities within your niche, then become a contributor. If your product is excellent, and relieves users from a terrible experience, then word of mouth marketing will be there. You can do things to help word of mouth spread faster (ask users to recommend your product to friends/colleagues after you know they've had a great experience).

You have to nail your pitch, and your pricing strategy.

warpspeed
Make it extremely easy for the customer to give you their money. I've never made a paid site, but as a customer I know that the more steps that are involved in taking my money, the more likely I'll be to change my mind. Oh, and give an alternative to PayPal if you choose to use it.
AznHisoka
Become an expert in your field, and leverage that personal brand. You can do this through blogging, guest blogging, forum posts, networking with others bloggers, commenting, getting your stuff syndicated, etc. This is what Joel from Stack Exchange, and 37Signals did.