May 26, 2020 08:00:00

What are the seven strategies by which successful web services such as Twitter, Facebook and Dropbox have gained their first users?

Investor Lenny Latchitzky surveyed how successful web apps and online services have exceeded 1,000 users since launch, with most services implementing one to three strategies. It turned out that it had acquired users. Strategies for each service can be broadly classified into seven, and how Rachitsky summarized how each service actually gained users.

How the biggest consumer apps got their first 1,000 users-Issue 25-Lenny's Newsletter

https://www.lennyrachitsky.com/p/how-the-biggest-consumer-apps-got

According to Ratchisky, seven strategies support the initial growth of all services. Most services have one strategy to get the initial users, and at most three strategies have been successful.

1: Promote where your target meets offline
2: Promote where your target gathers online
3: Invite friends
4: Use FOMO
5: Utilize influencers
6: Work on the media
7: Utilize the private community

◆ 1: Promote where the target gathers offline

DoorDash, a food delivery service, started from a website that just created a PDF of the restaurant menu in Palo Alto . DoorDash's development team printed a large amount of leaflets with a shipping fee of $ 6 (about 650 yen) and posted it everywhere at Stanford University. The number of users increased steadily, partly because the number of ready-to-eat meals was on the rise.

The matching app, tinder , targeted college students and conducted marketing mainly on college campuses. Tinder was sold to social clubs at the University of Southern California, and the fact that it 'knows whether or not the other party is interested in me' made a hit and led to an increase in the number of users.

Snapchat, a photo-sharing app, was made publicly by its founder, Evan Spiegel, who went to shopping malls, handed out leaflets, and gave one-on-one tutorials to Snapchat. It seems that Mr. Spiegel sometimes downloaded Snapchat to the other party's smartphone. In a book that summarizes the history of Snapchat, `` How to Turn Down a Billion Dollars: The Snapchat Story, '' says Spiegel, ``Let's do anything to win users. I thought.'

Etsy , a handmade e-commerce app, has teamed up to visit all craft fairs across the United States and look for Etsy sellers. Collecting sellers to sell at craft fairs has eventually led to buyers who are seller fans also being invited to Etsy.

The development team of the

Uber app, a car dispatch app, distributed the app's referral code at stations where demand for car dispatch services is high, and gradually increased the number of users.

Lyft , another ride-hailing app, the development team advertises to companies, not individual users. It spreads Lyft's name and credibility by gathering contact information for small start-ups from the entire development team and, with permission from each company, delivers free-of-charge ice cream from San Francisco's hottest store, Bilite Creamery. I heard that.

Ben Silberman, one of the founders of Pinterest , an image-sharing website, said in an interview , 'Honestly, I did a lot of desperation. I often go to the Apple Store to see all PC screens. Was turned into a Pinterest page, and I was making people think that 'Pinterest is really popular'.

◆2: Advertise at a place where the target gathers online
Dropbox founder Drew Hauston published a brief movie in April 2007 on Hacker News to introduce Dropbox . Below is a movie with the same contents as published in April 2007. With this movie, Dropbox succeeded in gaining users.

What is Dropbox? Explained! Original Dropbox Video [HD]-YouTube


The secret to the success of the short movie posting site TikTok was the long app name. Shortly after TikTok appeared, it wasn't called 'TikTok' but 'make awesome music videos with all kinds of effects for Instagram, Facebook, Messenger' (using all kinds of effects for Instagram, Facebook, Messenger). It was sold under a very long name, 'Let's make a great music video'. By using a known app name, it became easy to hit from the search engine and got many users.

Netflix says that employees have been advocating for home theater enthusiasts and movie fans, joining the movie fan community, gaining the trust of key members over a few months, and then slowly promoting Netflix. ..

Buffer, which has gained over 100,000 users in about nine months, was promoted by a guest blog that contributed to other companies' blogs. About 150 guest blogs have attracted the attention of many users as the number has increased, and have steadily increased the number of users. 'It took us a while to find the right guest blog posting frequency,' founder Leo Widrich said in an interview .

◆ 3: Invite friends

Slack, a team communication tool, was founded in an interview by founder Stewart Butterfield, saying , 'We asked a friend working in another company to try the app and give us feedback. I think there were about 10 companies. We asked Slack to share with a large group and increased the number of teams to increase not only users but also feedback.”

Shortly after the release, Facebook increased the number of users by having the friends of the development team use the service. When we first advertised Facebook on a mailing list with about 300 people, it spread from person to person, and we got over 1200 users within 24 hours after we announced it.

LinkedIn uses the network of its founder, Reid Hoffman, and picks up only successful friends to use on LinkedIn, thereby achieving both user acquisition and image improvement immediately after release.

◆ 4: Use FOMO
'Using FOMO' means that we are worried that 'I am the only one who does not use the service?' and acquire users by taking advantage of the surroundings.

Instagram founder of, Mr. Kevin Shisutoromu the lecture to talk about the creation of Instagram 's was 'the most large in, when you are testing to create a prototype of Instagram, the people there are many followers of Twitter I think it was a trial trial.Since the influential person shared it on Twitter, there is a lot of tension that 'When Instagram will be released, when will I be able to play?' On the day it was born and released to people, advertising on Twitter was a springback and had good results.'

Mailbox , an email management app, was so popular that over 700,000 users waited for registration for a while. Publicly, it is a mechanism for the Mailbox side to manage user demand, but it is also considered to be a marketing ploy that uses a large number of users as advertising material. In addition, Mailbox has reached the end of service on February 26, 2016.

Immediately after the release, Spotify adopted an invitation system for new user registration. By adopting an invitation system, we not only helped manage the growth level of Spotify, but also spread word of mouth from user to user.

◆5: Utilize influencers
As the first users, the founders of the

product submission site, Product Hunt , approached designers who have a large number of followers on Twitter and who have a strong background. We have established the artistry of Product Hunt by not only promoting it to a large number of users but also creating content that is good for everyone to see.

Below is a graph showing the change in the number of users immediately after Twitter release, where the vertical axis shows the number of users and the horizontal axis shows the date. The blog of entrepreneur Evan Williams posted on July 13, 2006 and the article by Om Malik posted on July 15, 2006 have greatly increased the number of users.

◆ 6: Work on the media
Instead of using a PR company, Instagram contacted the media directly and asked for a lot of coverage for the release. “At first, I was reluctant to ask people who might like Instagram, but when I contacted the

New York Times , not only were they interested in Instagram, We arranged a reporter to meet them. On the release date of October 2010, there was a reporter's coverage at about the same time, and the server was hit so badly that it was accessed.' I am.

The turning point for Airbnb , an accommodation brokerage service, was the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in Denver in 2008. Partly because there was a lot of attention to the presidential candidate Barack Obama at the time, more than four times more people than usual participated in DNC, and there was a large shortage of accommodation facilities. Airbnb has grown in popularity as it has been spotlighted by media and Democrat supporters who have sought accommodation.

However, the expanded use of Airbnb by DNC lasted for only a week. After that, Airbnb founders Joe Gevia and Brian Chesky said that they continued to manage small details while selling breakfast cereals that designed Obama and John McCain 's face on the auction site. That.

◆7: Utilize the private community
In the

interview , Product hunt founder Ryan Hoover said, 'When the product hunt was completed, I emailed a link to the product hunt to the people who helped me to use it. We had 30 users that day, and in about a week we had nearly 100 users,' he said.

Joel Spolsky and Jeff Atwood, founders of Stack Overflow , a Q&A site for programming technology and others, both had a large community of followers of online activities. The two were reluctant to start Stack Overflow with no content, and called on community members to join the beta and made Stack Overflow public with some content.

The 7 methods mentioned above are the methods that the startup application has acquired up to 1000 users. 'The tactics for winning the first 1000 users are very different than the tactics for getting 10,000 users,' said Latchitzky.