Ask HN: What should I do to make this product viral?

The problem with "viral" is very simple - virality works through either blind luck or a massive marketing spend in a short time (most viral things are simply well made adverts in disguise). As a startup you can't rely on the first ever happening and you can't afford the second. Market the app the 'old' way; go to events where parents go, pay for adverts on websites parents use, try to get a celebrity parent to endorse the app, and so on. It'll be very hard work.

Make it so good that people will tell each other. That's really your best bet, quality, ease of use, a reason to tell others (such as an invitation to share something from your service directly) all of those will contribute.

Make sure to measure your virality (even if only indirect) by asking your customers how they found you. That way even if you can't directly measure virality like this you can measure it indirectly by comparing it to how that answer was at some arbitrary point in the past.

If the trend in relative terms (%age of respondents) is 'up' then you know you're on the right road to lighting a fuse, if it is 'down' you are losing momentum (even when you're still growing!) and it might mean you have to change your strategy.

As bad as it sounds, your best bet is probably to astroturf (or whatever the equivalent term is for social networking - sockpuppeting?) on Pinterest and Facebook, try and get a mention on popular blogs, etc.

Expending effort into improving your product is not likely to pay off in a "viral" fashion.

> What should I do to make this product viral?

That's easy:

First and foremost, don't ask how to make it go viral in a public forum.

Second, let the news spread through agents provocateurs that it's a terrific program, so terrific you're having difficulty protecting it from thieves and pirates, but you've created what you think is a bulletproof protection scheme to defend your magnum opus against the barbarian hordes, and you're privately confident about your protection scheme.

Then step back and watch.

> What other features / benefits you suggest we should provide to make Joognu.com more viral?

You're way too sincere and eager. You need to adopt the "briar patch" strategy: "Oh please, mister boss man, don't throw me into the briar patch ... pleeeease!"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Br'er_Rabbit

Quote: "In the Cherokee tale about the briar patch, 'the fox and the wolf throw the trickster rabbit into a thicket from which the rabbit quickly escapes.'"

Dropbox.com - get more space if you refer a friend.

Improve the product. For a site that starts with "The most beautiful way to", your design needs work, so I'd start there. Good luck.

In my opinion, building a Viral Product takes more than just Marketing or Luck. I believe it begins with an understanding of your customer, and their desire to Share information within the Context of your Product. Taking this into consideration when designing the Product (or it's features) will allow you to build a Product that provides an environment that facilitates viral growth. Weather or not the Product actually goes viral will depend on how useful / valuable the Product is, in conjunction with your success rate of understanding your customer, and integrating this understanding into the Product.

In your example, I would start with some customer validation. Are you currently talking to your customers? If not, then this is probably an area of concern as you are likely out of touch with what they actually want. If you are talking to your customers, then you would want to modify your interaction with them to include some questions about what drives them to share, and what types of information they like to share, as well as who they would want to share it with. Then you basically take what you've learned and integrate it into your Product.

Going off the top of my head (this has not been validated, just my own understanding from knowing lots of parents), I would key in on the fact that Parents like to Brag about their Kids. So when their Children accomplish something cool, they want to tell all their friends about it. I would integrate this into the Product by identifying common Accomplishments that children experience in life (just learned how to walk, just learned how to talk, learned to ride a bike, etc,etc all the way up to graduated from college, got a good job, bought a house, and/or started a family). By identifying these moments / memories as Accomplishments (and perhaps assigning them a special badge of some sort), you will increase their value in terms of something worth sharing. Your Product already allows Parents to share specific moments / memories, but because these moments / memories are special, you will increase the Customers (Parents) incentive to share them, which becomes a vertical for potential viral growth. By following this train of thought (which always starts with customer validation) you can identify multiple verticals for potential viral growth. Essentially, you just want to learn and understand what makes your Customers share information, and then facilitate the sharing of that information. Good luck!