no one cares about your stupid little startup

No one cared about my stupid little startup

(and they don’t care about yours either)

Matt BrezinaCo-founder, Xobni

Matt@xobni.comTwitter: @brezina

Xobni’s Path To 3 Million Downloads(a 3.5 year journey)

PaidDriversStealth Nerd

ScarcityInviteBeta

Public Beta

IterationPrivate Beta

GA

Stealth

PaidDriversStealth Nerd

ScarcityInviteBeta

Public Beta

IterationPrivate Beta

GA

1.5 years

50users

• Only 50 users• Very boring website: No screenshots, product descriptions• Traffic from blogging – problems with email & entrepreneurship• Personal relationships with press and demo under embargo(ask for help before you need it)

Private Beta

PaidDriversStealth Nerd

ScarcityInviteBeta

Public Beta

IterationPrivate Beta

GA

2 months

10kusers

• Launched at TechCrunch50• “Too much demand”• Added 10k users in 1 day – everyone else sign-up

Nerd Scarcity

PaidDriversStealth Nerd

ScarcityInviteBeta

Public Beta

IterationPrivate Beta

GA

3 months

12kusers

• Leveraged excited early adopters• Badge program

• Added users from beta list when we needed lab rats

Invite Beta

PaidDriversStealth Nerd

ScarcityInviteBeta

Public Beta

IterationPrivate Beta

GA

3 months

50kusers

• Users could invite 5 friends• Maintained forgiveness of beta users• Nearly 100% conversion on clicked invites (users were self selecting people who’d want xobni)

Iteration

PaidDriversStealth Nerd

ScarcityInviteBeta

Public Beta

IterationPrivate Beta

GA

3 months

60kusers

• Needed product/market fit before exiting exclusivity• Wanted to accelerate WOM & virality for upcoming pop• 100k user beta list• Focused on performance, user ed & virality

Public Beta

PaidDriversStealth Nerd

ScarcityInviteBeta

Public Beta

IterationPrivate Beta

GA

1 year

1.5Musers

• Hired PR firm 6 weeks before launch • Officially launched Xobni open beta in NYT• 95k web visitors on day 1• 70k visitors on day 2!!

• Used demand for private beta as proxy for need of a solution to info overload and the value of a people focused inbox

Exit Beta

PaidDriversStealth Nerd

ScarcityInviteBeta

Public Beta

IterationPrivate Beta

GA

3 months

2Musers

• Reliable product• With product/market fit• That encapsulated our vision

Resulting in:• Strong WOM• Official adoption in enterprises• The ability to start charging

Paid Drivers

PaidDriversStealth Nerd

ScarcityInviteBeta

Public Beta

IterationPrivate Beta

GA

6months

3Musers

• Companies need a Z-combinator• PR & virality aren’t predictably scalable• Ain’t nothing wrong with spending money to make money• Need business model to make the sausage machine work

When we got PR help

PaidDriversStealth Nerd

ScarcityInviteBeta

Public Beta

IterationPrivate Beta

GA

Me

PR Contractor(but mostly me)

PR Firm

In-house&

PR Firm

No one cares about your stupid little startup

6 tips to make them care

Tip 1.

Tie yourself to a bigger trend– The web inside your inbox– Facebook crossing into the business world– Email is the oldest online social network– Enterprise software is now going bottoms up– Email overload is drowning the information

worker– Microsoft sucks

Case Study: Email Me Instead

I had 10k users and new blog/press relationships, before Xobni was even in public beta

Tip 2

Take every opportunity to meet a journalist in person

• Get product feedback• Social events• Make introductions• Base your company where the media is

Case Study: WSJ

Tip 3.

Engage heavily with users – positive WOM is even better than press coverage

Case Study: Xobni

• Our 5th employee was customer support• Elite Alpha forum of 500 users • Phone call (and blog) with one user per week• Special twitter handle for customer support• Engineers do tech phone calls with users• We send out a lot of tshirts

Tip 4.

Journalists are lazy. Help them be lazy

Case Study: Xobni.com

Tip 5.

Be a source of data

Case Studies: Tivo, Trulia, Facebook

Now, 3 million people know about – and care about - my stupid little startup

Matt BrezinaCo-founder, Xobni

Matt@xobni.comTwitter: @brezina