100 users
Well I haven’t stopped. I’m always too afraid to stop consulting until I can feel the torque of my new web startup pulling away from me. The past few weeks have been full time at the consulting contract throughout the day and non stop until around midnight or after every single night. Just to get it off the ground. I’m pretty tired, but seeing the site come together is so rewarding, I wouldn’t have it any other way. I will be happy to go on my summer holiday this year just thinking about how happy I am that its out there, and how the initial launch is behind us.
A lot has happened since my last post on this aaconsult blog. But basically the production version of the new startup web site is still very basic. Yet we have a new super deluxe version in our brand new development environment. This is what we have been working on during the past weeks. To me, the existing live version looks absolutely pathetic and bug-ridden now. We have improved so much stuff its not funny, and I can no longer bare to look at the existing live version. In fact, I am asking myself, why are we still signing up new Members and why are they actively contributing to the site? They don’t even know how good the site could be!
Why? Because this site is something that people want to use. Even though our initial beta version was very cheap, people still want to use it. They know they want to and they love it. We are getting the hardcore users who love the idea of the service, regardless of its flaws in this early state - so its growing regardless.
102 users now and we haven’t even launched the site. We’ve actually tried to keep it very quiet. But every day we are still seeing fresh new Members signing up with their beautiful real-world data that they love to contribute.
I used to firmly believe, that you really had to go out and actively promote any new web site to get the first 100 users on board. I.e. Launch a Google Adsense campaign, or send out some email marketing, or tell your friends etc. But now I know that its possible to create something that people want to use and to some degree, it just spreads like the plague. They email the URL to each other: “Check this out mate!”. They do the work for you.
I simply cannot wait to push out the new version at the end of this weekend, keep an eye on the stats and usage patterns. We are close to pushing out a mass email marketing campaign through our networks of friends and their friends and so on. After that will be Adsense. But we just need a couple more weeks to further fine tune things and refine the site before we target mass publicity..
Look after the user and the business will run itself.
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