Ask YC: What are the best ways to market bootstrapped apps?
What are the best ways to market bootstrapped apps? PPC is great because of the tracking but the costs add up very fast. Obviously approaching blogs/news sites/newspapers/magazines is a great way to get some PR, but what are some other ways?
Published in 2008, this chronicle by @pjharrin details the mechanics of building a profitable, self-funded business without venture backing.
Core Principles for Independent Builders:
Charging customers from day one acts as the ultimate filter for building software that solves genuine, high-urgency problems.
Keeping fixed overhead low and leveraging lean infrastructure allows founders to stay alive until market tailwinds kick in.
Small, repetitive improvements in customer retention and conversion rates yield massive returns over multi-year horizons.
Community Debate Themes:
The community focused on B2B customer acquisition channels, cold email vs SEO distribution, and balancing full-time employment with side-project development.
CATEGORY Bootstrapping & MRR →
HISTORICAL ERA Web 2.0 Genesis (2007–2013)
COMMUNITY SCORE ★ 34 points
TOTAL DISCUSSIONS 10 comments
We had a rather successful Ask YC on this several days ago - see http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=341138
It did focus mostly on online PR, however, so perhaps others could provide deeper coverage on this question on areas I know of but have not tried (or no longer use). For example:
- trade shows
- schwag
- guerrilla marketing
- speaking at events (supposedly can work wonders if you do it right)
- publicity stunts (think Richard Branson)
- becoming a press contact who's quoted a lot
- producing an event for your industry / sector yourself (worked wonders for Carsonified!)
- presenting your product in a remarkable way (think of how Google presented Chrome with the comicbook approach - get inspired by Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud - http://www.scottmccloud.com/ - or see http://xplane.com/ for a more corporate look)
- paying for word of mouth (risky)
- on the street promotion (booths, etc)
- leveraging networks like LinkedIn
- sponsorships
- cross promotions
- affiliate marketing
- e-mail list marketing (not spam)
- lead development and phone calls (surprisingly effective in many areas, though I don't do it as it's not relevant to my sector)
- writing a book on your topic (works better if you're a consultant OR you're happy to be the "face" of your product)
- social objects (look at Hugh MacLeod's career as of the last 3 years)
- be interviewed
- do your own interviews of people in your industry for your company's blog (see FiveRuns' blog for this in action - it's been very successful)
In terms of books, some personal recommendations (as in, I've read them and they rock):
- Dirty Little Secrets of Buzz by David Seaman (this is like dynamite)
- Whatever You Think, Think the Opposite by Paul Arden
- Any of the "Guerrilla Marketing" books by Jay Conrad Levinson
- Ready, Fire, Aim by Michael Masterson.
It depends on the product.
Fleaflicker's sole source of promotion the first two seasons was Google AdWords. Fantasy football search terms are always popular; one user would invite a dozen of their friends to play after they discovered the site.
I tried other methods but that provided by far the best return.
I spent a lot of time E-mailing bloggers and journalists. The reply rate is very low but if one person actually reads your message writes about the site, the payoff is huge. Obviously don't spam when you do this. Research the journalist you're pitching to and make your E-mail memorable. It's kind of like a cover letter when applying for a job.
Peter, I have some idea on colaboration. In short, we just ran a flash based calling app, we are going to experiment with flash ads. Just for sake of an experiment, we can load your flash clip for a while to see if it gives any results. If interested, pls contact me over email or google talk at ruslan.zalata at gmail.com.
This approach isn't for every company, but if you offer a free application that is related to your industry then that can be an amazing way to get traffic and name recognition. Basically, a free viral application to get others to do the marketing for you.
Use Google Alerts and Google News to track keywords related to your product. You'll pick up a lot of SEO spam with the former, but it's a decent way to make contacts with journalists writing on related subjects.