Ask YC: How much would you pay to have Michael Arrington read your email?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=146095

by jasonlbaptiste • 18 years ago

11 23 18 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Random thought regarding a random idea I've been toying with. The scenario:

You have a new startup you're launching, and it's a pretty cool product. Mike is overloaded with 2443 emails, and you want him to read yours. Consider you don't know him at all. How much would you pay to make sure he read your email?

Yes, I know some of you may say "None! TechCrunch isn't the end all to end all!". Just take this in a straight forward sense.

rms• 18 years ago

I hear that he mostly reads and responds to real emails people send him, even if he complains about email overload.

But I'd probably pay a couple of dollars if it made sure he read it.

jasonlbaptiste7• 18 years ago

yeah, he def tries to do what he can. tons of email are a problem regardless.

utnick• 18 years ago

100$, more if I'm funded

jasonlbaptiste7• 18 years ago

do you think he should get a cut of the $100 or should the service youre paying to make sure he gets it receive all the money?

kirubakaran2• 18 years ago

He should keep all $100.

Payton• 18 years ago

Paying someone to read an email about your startup is essentially advertising, very very targeted advertising. You are paying Michael Arrington X$ to take notice of your company.

I think your money would be better spent building a userbase and proving your startup in the market. Build your product before you build your marketing.

jasonlbaptiste7• 18 years ago

yes, obviously. I'm saying, product is built, you're ready to go. You could spend $10,000 to talk to arrington (ie- hire a PR firm that is pretty good), and still fail because of a shitty product. hehe, happens all the time. I'm saying outside of that.

mixmax• 18 years ago

Nothing.

I would, however, spend a fair amount of time doing some social engineering to make sure he would take note of my email when I send it to him. Before I sent him an email I would make sure that he had heard of my company. I would achieve this by posting to comments on his blog under pseudonymes, sneak references in on blogs he probably reads, etc.

When he receives the email from me with the subject "We just launched mylittlepony.com" he will think "aah, I read about that somewhere, I better check it out - it's the buzz"

Believe me - this sort of thing actually works.

jasonlbaptiste7• 18 years ago

yup, i believe you, these things definitely do work. Far and few though can execute it right. Obviously there's the whole: If you haven't met him personally, and can't get in front of him, then you probably shouldnt be pitching anyway. What about the guy in Iowa with no connections, but a great product that should somehow get his attention.

lurker• 18 years ago

you mean like 37Signals? ok, they're in chicago, not iowa (same thing, right?) But they didn't have connections until they created bitchin products. The connections are the easy part.

fastor11• 18 years ago

Payton,

Of course considerable resources spent would be better spent on building a userbase and proving a product in the market, but if we're talking about $100 or so, then it's better spent on getting a prized journalist to take notice of your product. All in all, 100 bucks maybe would make a difference in getting the targeted press you'd like, but it will not even make a mark towards the monumental efforts you mentioned that would take way more than a measly 100 bucks.

kirubakaran2• 18 years ago

"1-900" email huh? Interesting.

A better idea for him would be:

He should make an inbox out of (nsv) in Arc. Then people can vote on his emails and he can just read what is on his hot page.

jasonlbaptiste7• 18 years ago

ha, make the emails you dont read public, ie- pitches, and then rate them up. cool concept, but wouldnt work for the mass market.

Prrometheus• 18 years ago

If he blogs about you, you get a few thousand hits. How valuable is a few thousand hits from his audience? How likely is he to blog about your startup? Multiply the two and that’s your answer.

jasonlbaptiste7• 18 years ago

look at it this way, advertising on tech crunch is about 10k a month. lets say this is worth 10% of that, so an article is worth $1000. Lets say there is a 3% chance youll get an article on you. So, $30.

simplegeek• 18 years ago

I would rather create a great product & rather have him pay me to write a review for my product ;)

wumi2• 18 years ago

what kind of product is it?

While it makes sense to get coverage on a major tech blog a la TC, what sense does it make to focus energy on getting on one tech blog if 13-year-old girls will use your product, or middle-aged women. (i.e. not typical TC readers)

Yes, the VC-advantage that PG has talked about, but as far as gaining market traction, why not focusing on a blog/ pub that focuses on your target demographic.

Let's take ingolingo that just posted on HN -- is their best audience really TC to get out news of their language/vocal-learning startup?

jasonlbaptiste7• 18 years ago

You could consider TC a blog in their target market/ of relevance, in this case.

wumi2• 18 years ago

OK -- this still sounds a little too fishy for me.

What you're describing is essentially paid advertising.

joshwa• 18 years ago

Can I pay with karma?

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=144580

manvsmachine• 18 years ago

I think the problem has more to do with email than getting people to pay attention. Example: the major thing that got me really into twitter was when quotably launched. First thing I thought to do was show it to someone who had a huge list, so I messaged the url to Scoble. Even though I've never had any contact with anybody in the Web 2.0 / blogosphere world, he checked it out, linked to the site in his feed, and even messaged me back saying thanks. This is with only having an account for a few hours and nobody on my followed list. Not everyone will always react so favorably, but there will always be alternative channels to get the word out to somebody if you really want to. To me, email just isn't the best form of communication for initially attracting attention, especially in this industry.

kul• 18 years ago

charging $1-$2 would help by cutting out the noise he receives, much like the listing fees on eBay stop spammers.

nextmoveone• 18 years ago

Yeah, I wouldn't cause I'm pretty sure a catchy title would work to get it read, everyone that runs/writes for those blogs seem to respond fairly quickly.

If they don't respond it usually means that you putting out more noise than signal.

Ask YC: How much would you pay to have Michael Arrington read your email?

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