How Hipster Got 10K Signups In Two Days Without Revealing What It Does

http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/17/hipster-2/

by ssclafani • 16 years ago

33 30 16 years ago

techcrunch.com

jdp233• 16 years ago

"But just like the hipster tribe themselves, what Hipster does is besides the point."

Really? It's probably going to matter one of these days ...

ianl• 16 years ago

Don't question TechCrunch, it'll boggle your mind.

callmeed• 16 years ago

Images also exist for: http://city-images.usehipster.com/boulder.jpg http://city-images.usehipster.com/losangeles.jpg http://city-images.usehipster.com/newyork.jpg http://city-images.usehipster.com/boston.jpg http://city-images.usehipster.com/miami.jpg http://city-images.usehipster.com/chicago.jpg

but not Portland or Seattle? And it's called "Hipster"? Phhhhfffttt

fookyong4• 16 years ago

Dry testing at its best.

1) Landing page with email capture + vague promise of something cool

2) ???

3) Profit!

I wouldn't be surprised if they don't have a product yet and are still figuring things out...

EDIT: Just realised I am a hypocrite... http://littlecosm.com (I assure you that there is a product behind this, though!)

hugh3• 16 years ago

I wouldn't be surprised if it's all a massive hoax to see how many people you can get, with a little clever marketing, to sign up for a site that doesn't even exist.

Though now that it's been so successful, it'd kindof be a waste not to monetize the hoax.

daemin• 16 years ago

Isn't that the whole point for the practice of lean startups? Where you validate that there is a market by asking people to give their email address before you go and start spending time and money on it.

Still feels a bit "icky" to me, but then I like the act of building stuff itself.

fookyong4• 16 years ago

It is, although normally with a Dry Test you are a little more specific so that you know what product the hype is or is not being validated for.

Hipster's hype simply validates that people like hype (and pictures of cities).

steveklabnik• 16 years ago

Registered. ;)

fookyong4• 16 years ago

it worked!

dqminh• 16 years ago

the site looks great. Registered ;)

narkee2• 16 years ago

Illustrates how much tech adoption is driven by hype and bandwagon behaviour, and not by actual content or usefulness.

dominostars• 16 years ago

Isn't that just another way of saying, 'Illustrates how much tech adoption is driven by marketing'?

jdp233• 16 years ago

wait a second though, nobody's adopted it yet. so i'd rephrase: Illustrates how much tech 'journalism'adoption is driven by hype and bandwagon behaviour ...

coderdude• 16 years ago

Must... fight... the envy. Seriously though, congratulations to the people behind it. I'd be so excited if I got that kind of response and I'd feel a lot of pressure to not let all those interested people down.

trotsky• 16 years ago

So TechCrunch is now promoting themselves as a critical component in the substanceless promotion of a pre-launch website whose purpose is undetermined?

Their mothers must be very proud.

benologist• 16 years ago

Heh one of the comments posted this link:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:suTSLVu...

Which shows it to be another Q&A site.

dusing• 16 years ago

Hmm. Hipster style Q/A for major cities. Like a Gilt/Quora. Could work

joshfraser2• 16 years ago

We borrowed the same sign up process for http://torbit.com and are seeing the same viral results, even though our product is a lot less consumer facing than theirs.

I wouldn't be surprised to see this become standard functionality for startup landing pages.

cmer• 16 years ago

Could you explain this signup process a little bit more? I don't see anything unusual at Torbit...

joshfraser2• 16 years ago

After you register we give you a custom link that offers you priority access if you get your friends to register using that link.

gmjosack• 16 years ago

Once you signup it tells you to invite 3 more people and says the more people you invite the sooner you'll get access. Not to take away from all the signups they've received but I'm sure a good percent are people just entering fake emails with their referral ID considering you don't even need to confirm your signup.

narkee2• 16 years ago

It's like a pyramid scheme!

jdp233• 16 years ago

except without any money!

fookyong4• 16 years ago

Turns out Hipster is Q&A for places:

https://twitter.com/#!/yongfook/status/27198058643066880

brudgers• 16 years ago

If you have to ask what hipster does, you're not hip enough to get it.

NiloParedes• 16 years ago

As the hispter answered the straight-faced young mid-western in my office, "What's a hipster?"

jw84• 16 years ago

I wish they would graduate Alexia to cover better stories. Give her some of those Glengerry Glen Ross leads, Michael and Erick, instead of making her trawl through Hacker News threads.

Other than the ironic name use, what's the point of throwing 460 words on this?

impendia• 16 years ago

That's a damn good picture. If they had put up an even slightly less cool picture, the number of signups would not be so crazy.

With technology, as with everything else in life, appearance matters, and this proves it.

sunbash• 16 years ago

So there's been a lot of talk about hipster - the super stealth startup that amassed a butt load of subscribers without revealing what it does. There's been a lot of talk about how "brilliant" a success it already is.

TOTAL BS IN MY OPINION

First of all, its just the good ol SV old boys club at work. How did the startup get prime coverage on TC their first few hours of splash page activation? guess the founding team has some great connections.

secondly, i believe only techies and irrelevant early adopters invite people to a site they have never used in return for "beta" access. 90% of the world doesn't even know what beta access is. 80% of these sign ups will never return.

What the F* does this validate?

I'll give it up for a great name and connects I would kill for, but these guys have done absolutely nothing yet as far as i am concerned. Get this shit off your homepage TMZ... i mean tech crunch.

What do you think?

How Hipster Got 10K Signups In Two Days Without Revealing What It Does

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