Hi! I'm Lauren

I've Built a Lot of Startups

• Hack'n Jill
• MamasLatinas
• Yipit
• Hoseanna
• Urgent Career

How To Get Your First 100 Users

Particularly ones that you've never met before

So! You Built Something Cool

• Awesome!
• How are people other than you going to find it?

Or Maybe It's Not Built Yet

• You still need users
• Start finding them now

1: Name It

• Get a googleable name
• Landgrab: URL, Twitter, Facebook

How To Name It

• How We Named Our Startup With a Python Script
• Startup Name Generators (google these)
• Don't stress. You can change it later

2: Value Proposition

What's a Value Proposition?

A value proposition answers the following questions for anyone that lands on your site:

• Why am I here?
• What can this do for me?
• Do I belong here?

Stub It Out

For [target customers] who need [statement of need], [product name] is a [categorical noun] that does [key benefits]. Unlike [primary competition], our product [statement of primary differentiation].

Refine It

• Remove adjectives and adverbs
• Make it 10 words or fewer
• You can always change it later
• This should be hard. It ties immediately into how you make money

Great Value Props (Examples)

• Remember Everything (Evernote)
• Built Better Software, Together (Github)
• Payments for Developers (Stripe)

Bad Value Prop (Examples)

• Give us 5 minutes and we'll supercharge your website (CloudFlare)

Value Propositions Aren't

• Slogans
• Videos
• Marketing Copy

Stuck? Browse SkyMall

• I'm serious
• PorchPotty: Finally, your dog has a yard of his own
• Swim to the music with Sony Waterproof Walkman MP3 Player
• Now you can set an alarm without ever moving from the comfort of your bed

Great!

• You're ready to launch paradisevalleysaladcompany.com
• Now what?

3: Build A Splash Page

• URL
• Name
• Value Proposition
• Email Form

Why Email?

• You want to capture emails
• You want to build a list of potential salad dressing buyers

4: Thoughtful Auto-respond

• Thanks for signing up!
• I'm Michael Bluth, founder of Paradise Valley Salad Dressing Co.
• We're not quite ready for prime time yet
• We expect to launch...
• In the interim, please do this:

Ask Them To Do This:

• Answer a survey
• Follow on twitter
• Read a blog post
• Contact you

More Advanced Asks:

• Tweet about you (give them a sample)
• Like you on Facebook
• Sign up their friends to get first access to salad dressing
• Custom salad dressing labels & recipes (think kickstarter)

Time To Experiment with Paid Marketing

• Paid marketing is the quickest way to determine if your value proposition resonates with strangers

5: Set Up Google Analytics

• Capture number of unique visitors
• Capture number of clicks on "submit" button of email form

6: Find Targeted Keywords

• Use Google's Keyword Tool
• Find specific, local keywords that relate to salad dressing (creamy salad dressing in southern california, not dressing)
• Include typos

7: Pay For Marketing

• Write copy for 3 different ads
• Best california dressing vs. creamiest california dressing vs. 100% blue paint free dressing
• Set the keywords to your splash page
• Set a budget ($100 for 4 weeks)
• Wait

8: Measure Your Results

• Click through rate = # people who saw your ad / # of people who clicked through to your site
• Conversion Rate = # of people who clicked submit / # of unique visitors
• These will be very low to start
• Don't get discouraged

9: Refine

• Click through rate > 5% on one ad? Great! Focus your spend on the successful ads
• Conversion rate > 5%? Great! Your value prop is resonating
• Neither? Refine your ad copy or your value proposition

Congrats!

• Your value proposition resonates with some people!

Now Comes the Hard Part

Ugly Fact:

Email addresses != Paying Customers

Ugly Fact:

To get paying customers, you need to sell

How To Sell?

Become an Expert In Your Value Proposition

• 10 ways salad dressing cures cancer
• How to make your own salad dressing
• How salad dressings save the world

Better Examples

• Code Climate -> Rails Security
• Customer.io -> Write Better Emails
• KissMetrics -> Marketing Blog

11: Start Blogging

• You're blogging, right?
• Why we built this
• What it does
• What we've learned
• How it makes your life better / easier

12: Guest Blog

• Write a guest post that showcases your expertise in your value prop
• e.g. "Does Your Salad Dressing Contain Blue Paint"?
• Target a new audience
• HuffPo, Fortune, Medium, BI are great for this
• Link back to your splash page and blog in your author bio

13: Meet Journalists

• Find 5-7 industry-specific bloggers
• Follow them on FB/Twitter
• Help them out (tips, data, introductions)
• Build a relationship now

14: Organize an Event

• Pick a topic relevant to your value proposition
• Invite people
• You're now a thought leader
• You're now recognizable in your space

15: Reward Your First Users

• Install Rapportive
• Reach out to each signup personally
• Do some customer development (why do you buy salad dressing? what was the last one you bought?)
• You'll learn some great things from these conversations

16: Email Your Blog Posts

• Stale email addresses = high spam complaints on launch
• Your first users need to remember you exist
• Email them at least 2x a month
• Add value to their lives

Next Step: IPO?

Thanks!

Questions?