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Ask HN: Does asking for help actually help?

3 points by gilli ↗ HN
I recently saw the website of a startup where they had a whole section on the frontpage asking people to help them promote their startup. However I cant seem to remember what website it was but I am pretty sure I found it here on HN.

Anyway my question is: does this actually get any results? Do any of you have any experience going down this path?

The reason I ask is that I got a small project myself that I am bootstrapping with pretty much no budget, and I am struggling to get some promotion as well as contributing users. The websites purpose is to get people to help other people by suggesting and rating treatments for diseases and generally people love the idea and the execution, but I am still having difficulty getting the word out there and getting people to write the treatments they know of.

I would love to hear some recommendations and experiences from those of you who have successfully conquered a similar situations.

5 comments

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zoltar92
As someone who has a lot of experience in social media marketing both through apps- and other areas: If you're asking for help you're wasting your time. Rather focus on making a product or structuring the product so that others WANT to share it. Which results in viral-ity. If you're marketing plan even slightly focuses on "asking others to help" you're doomed from the start. -obviously this doesn't apply if you allow for an intrinsic benefit of others (example: Tor encourages users to share in order to better mask secrecy).
gilli
Well the problem is my project isn't exactly something super hot that people go crazy over. It is something that would be useful to a lot of people with health problems though, especially when a lot of people are contributing to it.

So it seems terribly difficult to get people to actually contribute and spread the word, especially with 0 budget.

zoltar92
You therefore have a very specific niche market which is awesome! Focus on different ways of aggregating data that would avoid the necessity of crowd-sourcing. If your product is useful, which it sounds like it is, focus on search engine optimization and you will see traction is natural.
orangethirty
Contacting the potential users directly is always a great way to get the word out. Find out who your users are, and then cater to their issues.
[dead] vivekrp
I run a branding, web design and social media marketing company called WebCreators.in (http://webcreators.in). as per my view you can use some platform like KickStarter to get crowdfunded