How does your startup find early adopters?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3512070

by tonyrice • 14 years ago

4 4 14 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I was wondering what strategies you guys use to find early adopters. How does the process usually go for you?

We are relying entirely on engagement analytics at this point, focused mostly on social media and organic search - and then facilitating outreach to get feedback from users.

dtwwtd• 14 years ago

This is a great question. On our last project we mostly got feedback from close friends (one even did a usability study as a class project!) and attempted to get feedback via random posts on the internet.

We've been working on something new recently and are nearing the point of finding early adopters to take feedback and iterate. While we have some people lined up, I'd love to hear what others do.

hansy• 14 years ago

It's pretty important to really narrow down who your target users are. For example, just saying "teenagers between the ages of 13-18" can still be pretty broad.

If you can narrow down even further to something like "teenagers between the ages of 13-18 who play the piano" then you can figure out a distribution channel where you can find these individuals. In this example, maybe contacting local piano tutors or local music stores may help you reach your target audience.

Even if your product brings some value universally, see if you can figure out the tiniest sub-group possible that benefits the most from your product.

tonyrice• 14 years ago

Thanks for your feedback guys. Currently I am working at getting feedback at possible early adopters for my product and at this point sometimes it's just easier to get feedback by just asking :) There's nothing wrong with this method either. Also hansy I completely agree with you

How does your startup find early adopters?

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