How to Get Your First 1,000 Customers(backblaze.com)
backblaze.com
How to Get Your First 1,000 Customers
https://www.backblaze.com/blog/how-to-get-your-first-1000-customers/
30 comments
So this is odd. This post is currently sat at 44 points but zero comments?
Yev from Backblaze here - sometimes we jump-start the conversation by saying, "Hey, we're monitoring the thread if you want to chat." - but you beat me to it, I hadn't even noticed it was posted until I saw a tweet a few minutes ago by a HackerBot :D
Also it's kind of a long post, maybe folks are reading it before commenting? The title doesn't really give too much away :D
Confirm.
Sometimes though when things are really interesting but long I'll go back, upvote and then continue reading to prevent it from dropping off the page.
This is especially true if it is a story from /newest
Also with a few web sites I might upvote it first and then read it :-|
Sometimes though when things are really interesting but long I'll go back, upvote and then continue reading to prevent it from dropping off the page.
This is especially true if it is a story from /newest
Also with a few web sites I might upvote it first and then read it :-|
> Also with a few web sites I might upvote it first and then read it :-|
I can neither confirm nor deny that I do this too but I can say that I think it makes sense to do this, and I would go as far as to say that I think it's healthy for the HN community that stories get upvoted by people who have not yet read the story in full, as long as it doesn't happen too much -- while a story might turn out to be lacking or even factually incorrect in some way I think there is opportunity for interesting discussion to be had as long as the topic at hand is interesting.
I can neither confirm nor deny that I do this too but I can say that I think it makes sense to do this, and I would go as far as to say that I think it's healthy for the HN community that stories get upvoted by people who have not yet read the story in full, as long as it doesn't happen too much -- while a story might turn out to be lacking or even factually incorrect in some way I think there is opportunity for interesting discussion to be had as long as the topic at hand is interesting.
Yev, months ago I contacted sales through the form, inquiring about B2 cloud storage for a multi-tenant enterprise app. Never heard back. Can you point me to a non sales@ email address, rather someone I can discuss my inquiry with? Thanks
That's so weird! Sure, email salescontact @ backblaze and someone will get back to you!
It happens a lot on highly technical submissions. You love the solution but have nothing to add to the discussion.
I've had a surprising amount of traffic using a simple referral program.
Can you elaborate on how you have implemented this?
Related soft piece on getting your first 100 users:
https://medium.com/@mobitar/how-to-get-your-first-100-users-...
https://medium.com/@mobitar/how-to-get-your-first-100-users-...
> There is a fine line between persistence and annoyance. I once had a journalist write me after we had an announcement that was covered by the press, “Why didn’t you let me know?! I would have written about that!” I had sent him three emails about the upcoming announcement to which he never responded.
And that's the reason folks why people follow-up. People might share a deep repulsion towards them and until recently, even I abhorred the idea. But, I have seen people I emailed respond a few weeks after I sent a follow-up—the point when I assumed I am pestering and the other guy is getting infuriated. My email wasn't about selling something, it was a small question around someone else's work but the general principle applies.
I am not courageous—salesman-type courageous—to send more than one follow-up but I have consistently seen people winning big deals in the third or fourth one. It's undeniable that many people will get vexed in the process but there's hardly any salesperson in the world who didn't annoy that many.
And that's the reason folks why people follow-up. People might share a deep repulsion towards them and until recently, even I abhorred the idea. But, I have seen people I emailed respond a few weeks after I sent a follow-up—the point when I assumed I am pestering and the other guy is getting infuriated. My email wasn't about selling something, it was a small question around someone else's work but the general principle applies.
I am not courageous—salesman-type courageous—to send more than one follow-up but I have consistently seen people winning big deals in the third or fourth one. It's undeniable that many people will get vexed in the process but there's hardly any salesperson in the world who didn't annoy that many.
Yev from Backblaze here -> Gleb (author) and I have both had that (writers missing our emails and then being shocked that they missed a story) and it really does make your heart sink a little bit. We've adjusted our pitch schedules as well based on the writer and how responsive they are (and what their contact preferences are - some like 2 weeks notice, others like 2 days, etc...).
I've done PR for startups and this is one of the best, most detailed guides I've seen about how the sausage is made.
I would add:
Getting good PR in premiere outlets will give you so much more than just the first 1,000 customers. It can open the door to all kinds of opportunities, from being invited to speak at the conferences your customers attend, better recruiting, being noticed for partnership and business development deals, an being top-of-mind if you start looking for funding.
Embargoes are a tricky logistical detail, if you're using one, you don't want to leave any room for error. So aside from mentioning it in the pitch, also include something like "Embargoed until 4/13/17 at 8am California time" in stand-out font at the top of any fact sheet, press release, etc. that you share with the journalist and be sure to mention it in all your confirmation emails.
Once you get awesome PR, figure out the best way for it to live on your site going forward. I see lots of startup landing pages these days with logos like TechCrunch, Wall Street Journal, etc across the bottom but no links to said articles. I can understand why, for conversion rate optimization, you may not want to include the links on your landing page. But for ultimate credibility and (possibly SEO juice) consider having a separate section on your site for press where the actual links to the articles can be found.
I would add:
Getting good PR in premiere outlets will give you so much more than just the first 1,000 customers. It can open the door to all kinds of opportunities, from being invited to speak at the conferences your customers attend, better recruiting, being noticed for partnership and business development deals, an being top-of-mind if you start looking for funding.
Embargoes are a tricky logistical detail, if you're using one, you don't want to leave any room for error. So aside from mentioning it in the pitch, also include something like "Embargoed until 4/13/17 at 8am California time" in stand-out font at the top of any fact sheet, press release, etc. that you share with the journalist and be sure to mention it in all your confirmation emails.
Once you get awesome PR, figure out the best way for it to live on your site going forward. I see lots of startup landing pages these days with logos like TechCrunch, Wall Street Journal, etc across the bottom but no links to said articles. I can understand why, for conversion rate optimization, you may not want to include the links on your landing page. But for ultimate credibility and (possibly SEO juice) consider having a separate section on your site for press where the actual links to the articles can be found.
I'm the CTO for a startup that is launching our public beta next month. Do you think it's work trying to find the "dream" journalist and giving them a launch exclusive or is it a case of the more, the merrier?
Who do you consider to be your dream journalist / dream publication? For publicizing your launch it's very challenging to get the interest of outlets I mentioned elsewhere in this thread unless you have name-brand funders and / or an established track record. Here's an example of a new company that was able to get this kind of attention because it had these elements:
https://www.fastcompany.com/40439810/this-new-site-sells-foo...
If you don't have these then getting your dream journalist to cover your launch will depend very much on how compelling a story you're able to craft around your product and the impact it will have. Don't underestimate what you're doing but also be very critical about it. I like the simple question mentioned in the Backblaze piece: >be really honest with yourself: if you weren’t involved, would you care?
If you don't have these then getting your dream journalist to cover your launch will depend very much on how compelling a story you're able to craft around your product and the impact it will have. Don't underestimate what you're doing but also be very critical about it. I like the simple question mentioned in the Backblaze piece: >be really honest with yourself: if you weren’t involved, would you care?
What are a few "premiere outlets"?
Yev from Backblaze here -> for us it depends, and I imagine the type of story would dictate it. For example, our Hard Drive Stats stories don't really belong in Inc. for example, (they'd be more "at home" in places like ZDNet, Ars Technica, etc...) but something like this we might have pitched to Inc. Fortune, or something similar had we decided to pitch it.
TechCrunch, Recode, Fortune, NYTimes, Wall Street Journal, Wired, MIT Tech Review, to name a few. Of these TC is the one you would typically go to for announcing your launch or new funding. The others don't tend to cover launches of brand new startups and have a higher bar but there are other angles you might use to pitch them.
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Yev from Backblaze here - we definitely splatter the embargo dates/times all over every document/email that we send out. If one person breaks it, other writers get upset and that's not good for anyone. We've even placed people in "penalty boxes" where if they've done it before we don't pitch them until morning-of or right as the release is occurring. We might even give them another tidbit of information so they can take a different approach than others writers (so there's still some incentive for them to write).
I've always thought that the best way to launch is a Show HN and a reddit post on some related subreddits. Is this a better option for the launch of a productivity app?
Surely a productivity app launch can't be that interesting for news.
Surely a productivity app launch can't be that interesting for news.
Yev from Backblaze here -> ProductHunt is also pretty popular for productivity apps and similar items, though backup may not necessarily fall in to the realm of things folks are used to seeing on those sites. (Edit - formatting)
> Surely a productivity app launch can't be that interesting for news.
This is exactly my challenge: I'm launching a todo list app soon. Thankfully, I have a potentially interesting story to tell:
"Matterlist: an angry Russian writes a 300-page spec, spends 3 years to create a perfect Wunderlist replacement".
This is exactly my challenge: I'm launching a todo list app soon. Thankfully, I have a potentially interesting story to tell:
"Matterlist: an angry Russian writes a 300-page spec, spends 3 years to create a perfect Wunderlist replacement".
I've found reddit to be a questionable place to get customers. Traffic, sure, but customers? Not so much. If you want to spike up your traffic for a few hours, post on reddit. But the conversation rates from reddit traffic are a fraction of the rates coming from other sources, in my experience.
I've read many posts that suggest your same conclusion, however people seem to have very positive things to say about reddit ads in terms of conversion rate.
+1 for ProductHunt and you might try LifeHacker, too.
(BTW, I'm a happy Backblaze customer since their launch. Thanks guys, you're incredible!)