Launching a new site/project with no traffic / money?
 

Business discussion.

I was reading this thread: http://www.gfy.com/showthread.php?p=...4#post17245104


My thoughts are below and it seemed like this would be a good topic for it's own thread. I am curious to see what other people think and ideas they have come up with, to what I think is the biggest hurdle to any new project / site (especially mainstream).

I wonder HOW people like Markus with POF, and Craig with Craigslist got to where they are today. I believe they both were programmers and started off with little to no money and programmed their own sites. Both were based on the free model, and both sites became incredibly popular and made a lot of money.

But how did they get from creation and launch to having their site get traction with out having a TON of money to buy advertising to launch it???

Was it just luck and they had 1000's of friends and asked them all to start using it and tell their friends?

The biggest hurdle I face with start ups that are similar to a classified site or dating site is how do you start it off with no users? Ok so you can fake it and make some bogus classified ads or dating profiles but still, who wants to use a site that is new and has very little to no one else is using yet ??? Is it because there were no other free dating / classified sites except for theirs back then so people gave it a shot? Where as now if I created a classified site that was new and there was no listings on it, why would someone take their time to post on my site that apparently no one posts on? Why wouldn't they just go to craigslist and post their shit and sell it in a matter of minutes? Or make a dating profile on POF???

Discuss... Why did they make it past this huge hurdle where as many many other people can not.

My guess is because they were programmers, they started out with scrapers of other similar sites until they had gotten some members on their site and slowly phased them out.

I can fake it, it's not that hard to load up a site with fake profiles/posts/ads and I am sure other people do that now but still fail to get traction on their new site. If anything, sites like POF and craigslist had a harder time faking it because there wasn't a lot of free sites out there like that at the time for them to pull the info.

i believe a lot of it had to do with timing and word of mouth. word of mouth for craigslist resulted from the success the early adopters had with its services- local events and tech jobs. pof word of mouth was based on the ability to browse the profiles for free, no cc required.

Word of mouth is one of the most profitable ways to market a product.
WG

those 2 operations also benefit from the low cost of overhead of running *low-tech* sites.

I think this is how most got to where they are today. How do you think TheHun got so big? It certainly wasn't his eye catching design. He was one of the only fish in the pond at the time.

There are exceptions to this though. What about Google who took out all the major search providers at the time (Hot Bot, Alta Vista, etc..) with nothing but a link on the Standford website?

Agreed, :)

I also think now is a great time to get huge traffic using viral marketing and social networking tools...its always good if you can think of a new spin/concept to make the word spread faster ...I have watched the site fiverr.com grow and grow and the word is spreading ..its now getting picked up by media outlets more and more from what was not so long ago a totally unknown gimmick type concept site.

I remember listening to Cart Talk on public radio and they used to mention craigslist a lot. That must have costed a pretty penny.

have you thought that maybe it was because they didn't have any free competition.

when your free it really easy to get real posting, just look at the online/paper classified and call those people up with a free ad offer

if someone paid 50 bucks for an ad in the paper and he gets as many responses from the free craigslist how likely do you think it will be that he wastes his money on another ad.

blueprint for the success of Plenty of Fish: Pick a market in which the competition charges money for its service, build a lean operation with a "dead simple" free website, and pay for it using Google AdSense.

Actually, you also have to consider that from that interview on POF, as well as the actual back story to MySpace, that most of the sites started out as a NICHE. MySpace was for bands when it started, and grew from there. FaceBook was for ONLY college students, POF was for ONLY Canadians.

THEN they grew.

The point being, if you have a good idea in a smaller targeted niche, it will take off it's self and spread to become something bigger. If your idea is shit, it will be flushed.
:2 cents:

They took out those sites by providing a more relevant, cleaner, solution faster than the others. Simple as that. They built a better mousetrap.

Also, Google was the search engine partner/provider on Yahoo for a number of years. Yahoo did not buy them out when offered, nor renewed the contract. So Google spun off.

They had brand recognition from years of 'search provided by Google' on Yahoo, which was the biggest at the time. They were far from, 'lightning in a bottle'.
:2 cents:

that really is an interesting angle to this that i've often pondered when i look at the success those site have and try to mimic that in my bootstrapping start-ups, which i love to do. it's hard to think big yet focus on a niche but these sites did that.

Well, it's the fact IMHO.

Everyone wants to be the next BIG THING. When you can easily be the BIG THING in your local area and make a mint. If you made the BEST dating site for your area, I am sure you could get a few hundred people to pay for it. If you made the BEST ad network for your area, providing the best targeted ads and data mining for your clients and advertisers, you would make a mint LOCALLY.

As you refined your process, if it was any good, it would expand beyond your local market. College students would rant and rave like they did with these other things, and take them back home and they would spread if you provide a good service. Over time, if you have a good idea, you would be forced to expand.

Maybe it's because I have always worked in niche, and on a smaller scale I see things this way. But I never thought of the online game of being the next..... Yahoo/Google/PornKing whatever. I only wanted to dominate my own little market.

If I can make $10/20K a month locally on a good idea. That is more than I would never spend a month based on my lifestyle. I would still become a millionaire by default in time. Frankly, I think people spend so much time thinking of being the king fish, they never learn to swim or actually BUILD the better mouse trap as it were.
:2 cents:

Word of mouth is the best advertising you can get, not only is it free but typically someone you know is endorsing it.

However, word of mouth usually comes from good experiences. For example, I make a profile on a dating site and get laid the next night. I then tell 20 buddies about this and they go make profiles. But if a site is new and I make a profile and get 0 replies, I don't go tell people about it ?? = no word of mouth. So how did the site get traction and getting success to then produce the word of mouth that got the snowball rolling faster. I don't believe the word of mouth came first and that is the hurdle I am trying to figure out how these sites got past that.

i think that goes back to my thoughts that if they were the first / only free sites then the people who used it first must have thought, " ok why not, this site doesn't look like it has a lot of posts on it or a lot of people using it yet, but since it is free i will take a couple minutes to make a post and see what happens".

Sure free is better than paid, that is obvious. But if I made a free classified site today why would someone post on it for free if my site is new and doesn't look like it gets a lot of activity. That person would go post on craigslist and get 10 responses in an hour instead of posting on my site to see what happens.

I've had a similar idea for a site like that for years but with an adult spin. I think it would do well. Anything you want for $5 (not prostitution) . Lots of potential from an adult side as well.

The most successful site launch in the last 12 months has to be ChatRoulette. The Russian teen who started it is a self taught programmer and wrote the code for the first version of the site in just 2 days. He told a few friends and it grew, but once the media picked it up, it exploded.

Timing and originality.

They didn't make 'another craigs list' they made 'craigs list.'
Those sites filled a present need when they launched. They didn't launch first and then try to create their own need after.


Solve a current problem in an original or greatly improved way... and people will use your product or service.

Linkspun.com link trading system
websitesecure.org site certifications
webmasterscore review submitter
webmasterchecks payout processing (pre DOJ)

all examples of innovative ideas solving existing problems

timing and originality.

You can also be second or third or fourth or "nth" in and still make money as "the competition". Look at Craiglist, how many similar sites are there now: Kijiji (eBay bought), Backpage (Village Voice owns I think) and more I won't waste space by listing....

Same with the SugarDaddy MillionairesOnly BeautifulPeopleOnly dating sites.... There has to be a niche you can exploit.

ah very good point. :thumbsup:thumbsup that is the feedback i was hoping to get, to make me think a little differently. While I know the importance of niche advertising, when it comes to new projects, especially mainstream ones I often think way to big. If you can get in good with a particular niche and get them using the site you can at least get your base of real users and word of mouth cranking then add on new niches and grow the site. Perhaps the hurdle is so big for most people to get their site going because they are setting the bar to high.

Whether your site/service if paid or free people want something that provides them a VALUE of some kind. Not everyone is a freeloading fuck, or cheapskate. If you provide a quality service, then people will flock to it, or pay for it. Which is why it's best to have a tiered system, again IMHO.

Craigslist is a great service, but what are it's flaws toots? The Nazi flaggers, the endless spam you get to almost every post because people do not have to sign up or have any accountability, their is not PREMIUM option where people like myself would PAY for a highlighted listing, stickied to the top, etc..

If you look at what their strengths and weaknesses are, build something better on a smaller scale, then over time it will take off just as those sites did.
:2 cents:

Correct. For those of use that have worked in (and understand) niche markets for a period of time, it really comes down the user base. They are loyal, and they also will be your best minions for spreading the word. You can incite that viral spreading with some well thought out advertising campaigns/freebies/add ons. But niche mofo's are your best asset.

Exactly. Talk to most people about their online ideas, and they all want to be the next Bill Gates type of mofo making millions with super models tossing their salads in a Benzo. Instead of simply being the richest motherfucker in their town, which is essentially the same thing in the real world.

Most of their ideas are too big for a single person, with unrealistic time frames, and typically no funding or resources to put behind it. In capital, and workforce. So they are bound to fail before they leave the station so to speak.
:2 cents:

I would think that it is a lot harder now to come up with original ideas and needs to fill. Dating, Classifieds, market places like Ebay, etc... all of the big things have been done and needs have been filled. Its like we need to wait for a new problem to pop up now to give us the opportunity to try to create a new innovative fix for it.

On the word of mouth thing a good example right now is myfreecams.com many of my buddies(non adult) is no talking about anything else and they recommend It to each other like crazy.

I do really well with niche advertising, but i look at it as I have this pool of traffic, in stead of trying to sell everyone the same thing, I will throw out there several different options and let people separate themselves down into their own niche. Thats for generating traffic. But there was a disconnect when it came to launching a new project / site (again all mainstream) . I've always thought big, set the bar high and wanted to be the next big myspace or facebook, or else why even do it right ? But it was the approach. Instead of doing a site focused on one college I wanted to start a site with a section for 100's of colleges. Now it just looks like a huge site with no people, you spread your resources thin, and it still looks empty. Instead of taking one college in this example and focusing on that one 100%, get it going, then add the next one. Keep it simple stupid, and you can still be the next big site you just have to do it one piece at a time.

One thing that sites like facebook had - before they became 'mega hits' - was that they were local. Built up a base by word of mouth (having users, and not feeling "empty"), then marketing/PR'ing their way to success on a national level.

Now-a-days, it's very hard to have major national success without a lot of capital, something that can make your site go 'viral' instantly (i.e. Howard Stern talks about it), or just simply having a hit (one of those DUH! Why didn't I think of that!?!? websites).

Well, look what ShoeBitch did a few years back. He made 'AuctionAds' which was basically little more than taking EBay auctions, putting some code on your site, and promotion auctions for them and getting a percentage of the sale.

You could put that on your site for say, car stereos, and if they did not like the shit on your blog, you could send them to relevant auctions on EBAY for that same shit for the cheapskates and still make some money.

Which is a loose 'tiered' system where you still are finding a way to make money on your traffic provided in VALUE and relevant service to your freeloading fucks. I do not think he had that network for 6 months before he supposedly sold it for millions to whomever.

Not a revolutionary concept by any means, but a simple way of meshing two things together or provide a SERVICE or a VALUE to your customer base.

Correct. They are cliche's for a reason.
:pimp

well, the value is what the word of mouth message is about. it can come almost instantly, as it did with cl. then it's the tell 2 people algo that kicks in.

Craig is a douche and seems anti capitalist. There is a LOT he could do to make more money from that site, but I guess he just banked on keeping it almost all free so it would grow faster early on and get some one to buy him out. Didn't ebay buy a big % of the company some years back.

That site should have a paid function even if it was just $1 a month for "approved" users to cut back on spam. And like you said, a sticky post for 24 hours in some section in the bigger cities would sell for tons of money. Even google ad words on side of the page would make a lot of money. I never understood why subtle things like that weren't added, what a waste of revenue. Seems so sac-religious.

Although I can't complain about it too much. I've sold a lot of stuff on craigslist, from cars, boats to old refrigerators to sports tickets. I've sold it on craigslist before it would even get listed in a newspaper or an auction on ebay would be finished <- both of which would have cost me a decent amount of money. So you can sell something faster and free. Who can compete with that.

yes.. that's how i found out about pof, my buddy said he scored on there, so i joined and closed some nice deals. wait, pof sucks!

There was an interview on WMR, NPR or something a few years back. Apparently he is making so much money as it is now, he has no interest in 'ruining the experience'. The interviewer brought up some of the same points, about sky's the limit.
:upsidedow

same with pof owner, he's fine with his several million/year profit on a simple design.

I would be as well.

Although, I am a creative person. So I really have a hard time staying focus once and idea starts making money and starts to level off. I simply want to move on to something else.

I have a white board, and years of shit I would like to do. So I typically sell the shit off when I am bored, and go do something else. I simply can't do a daily maintenance. So I try and automate everything, or have assistants deal with it.

Aren't adult ads, plus real estate in certain cities, paid ads? If I remember right they pay for the whole operation.

yeah, it's the big lesson, at least for me. when i look back at what i've cranked up that worked v. not worked, the businesses that proved successful began with the goal of selling one unit, getting one customer, one- just one. the failures were the ones that were gonna be huge, had funding, employees, etc. all set-up prior to making a nickel.



and tbh, i've had more failures than successes! lolz.

That is the typical story for most successful business people who talk about their lives I have found. Many more failures than successes, but they openly admit to learning from them. So when they finally DID hit it out of the park, they capitalized to the fullest extent.

Some get lucky out of the gate, but most have a lot of trial and error before the gold rush.

Actually Marcus is a douche too but for other reasons. I remember reading 3-4 years ago how he was crying that he was only making a couple million a month from selling ads but yet big pay dating sites like eharmony, match.com etc.. were making tens of millions. He brags one minute about his low overhead then after he convinces himself there is more money to be made in the pay dating game he started trying to tell people he had to charge a fee on his site to help cover the over head.

The guy was all over the place but it was apparent he wanted to do what ever made him the most money. Where as Craig comes across as an anti capitalist hippie.

about 1% (or less) of the ads on the site they collect revenue from. About .0001% of the earnings potential of that site with out pissing anyone off and losing users.

If memory serves, I wanna say that 'Craig' was from San Fran (for baddog). Which may explain the part about hippie, or Utopian dreamer bullshit.

I probably have 3-4 kick ass projects that are complete or 90% complete that were so big by the time I was finished i forced myself to need 100K's of thousands to launch it and when you are slammed what gets your attention.... (what is making you money right now). So very easily my attention was removed from my projects to my adult advertising because that was making me money not costing me money trying to launch something....

frustrating.... I was definitely trying to start too big.

Know someone that knows someone at CNN. That gets the words out pretty quick.

lololol, maybe that's the secret to bootstrapping- be a douche! :1orglaugh

dave, how did you crank up cyberage? :thumbsup

Trying to re-create the success of a phenomenon like CL or POF or OK Cupid or MySpace or Facebook or Twitter or Mister Peabody World (heh) is ultimately pointless because many of these sites' success was a result of a "perfect storm": timing, something in the public consciousness, a cool idea worked relentlessly until they "made it", etc.



"You must be the change you seek in this world."
- Ghandi

so what is next ? :)

I actually have a couple pretty unique ideas, but thinking I need to go back and rework them and start small instead of HUGE!!

That does not make sense. Is it fact or your opinion?

It's a fact many people call San Francisco, San Fran.
:2 cents:

As a programmer i get stuck always tinkering with the development and really hate to stop to add some designs. Sometimes I get done with the project and feel like working on something else in stead of marketing it.

I have several finished projects that never got marketed.

Craig Newmark had programming skill, alot of friends/ a big circle of influence, and he was located near ground zero for tech.