Ask HN: My site is better than that of competitors, how do I make my site known?

[garagol]

I don't know how many of you use chat sites when you feel like venting or talking for a while. There are websites like blahtherapy, 7 cups of tea, omegle(using tags) and others that fulfill this role, letting you connect with a random person to talk about whatever you want. It could be to talk about your new dog, or ask for advice about your struggling relationship, or to vent about your daily struggle with depression, or anything you want - you get the point.

Thing is, most of these sites are pretty bad, and fail in one way or another. Some spam ads everywhere, or allow trolls to flood in, or have poor programming (backspace exits the chat suddenly, no reconnection features, poor design), require creating an account - or a mix of these.

Because of all this, and because I myself am a user of these sites, I created my own "worthy" alternative, rainychat.com

However, even though I KNOW my site is better in most ways, I have no idea how to make people realize it exists.

Is advertisement on google neccesary? Do I repost my site on facebook and twitter over and over again? How do you promote your sites?

Honestly, I'm lost. I don't have lists or followers to spread the word, and if things keep this way my site will die eventually.

What would you do, HN?

[Gustomaximus]

Its a nice looking site. Why is it better?

1) I had a look at 7 cups and yours. 7 cups looked to identify then solve a problem for me as a talker (ie find out what was wrong and relax me while waiting, offering free or professional help) while your just had faster listner to talker connection potential.

2) Using 2 computers to connect to myself your service didn't allow voice?

3) Being random instant connections I connected to my other PC and tried various swear words and told myself to go kill otherself type thing. Nothing flagged the system which means this system is potentially opening depressed people to troll. Something that could have serious consequences.

I'm not taking the piss here. I'm marketing side and was intellectually curious to consider how I would market this. But I'm not feeling any USP of note and curious why you feel your is such a better offering? Could you expand on this? Personally it feels to me you need to go back to the goal of the projects and evaluate how and what your are trying to achieve and does this do that. I dont feel this is ready for significant marketing efforts.

[qwrusz]

> because I myself am a user of these sites

Well how did you come to find/become a user of all these sites?...

Upvote for your use of the "ask HN promotion strategy" done a bit more tastefully than what I've seen on here recently. Good luck.

[spcelzrd]

Hire a marketer. If you can't afford one, you have to become one yourself. If you need convincing that marketing is just as important as the product, read a book like The Ten Day MBA (it's super dated, but the principles still apply).

The fundamental truth of small business or entrepreneurship is that you have to do the things you can't afford to hire for (see Toilet Paper Entrepreneur).

Marketing is very very easy. Marketing on a budget is expensive. Go to the library and start reading. Don't forget to measure your results.

[shuzhang]

You seem to think a cleaner UI makes a product better, it doesn't. Right now your value prop is super unclear and it won't matter how much advertising you do.

For a product like this, the community is the ESSENTIAL part of the product. The best product in this category is the one with the highest quality network of listeners/people-with-problems and good matchmaking. You will probably also need something more specific to focus on.

For starters, think about where you can find potential users and where you can find people trying to tackle similar problems as you.

For example, check out the first google result for 'help lines': https://helplines.org/helplines

It's literally a listing of hundreds of organizations with pre-built networks of (trained) volunteer listeners and (hopefully) real demand from people with real problems. Maybe you can try messaging these organization to see if they need technology help. You can also ask about their experiences around building up their volunteers network and how they spread the word for their help line. If you craft good messages, maybe several out of those hundreds will talk to you. You should be able to get some good ideas with enough work, and maybe even a few potential partnerships.

Think about what else you can search for. Think about how to find relevant users on community platforms like reddit, google groups, fb groups, meetup etc. I'm sure there're lots of communities out there where people have problems and look for advice or want to talk things out. Segment the potential users and try to gauge the level of demand. Think about what exactly different types of users need and how to craft the right pitch for them (and if you can deliver on it). If you get it right, you could also leverage those communities to seed your initial network.

If you get specific, you'll have an easier time creating value by seeding the network correctly, doing better matchmaking and having a clearer pitch and value prop.

update: updated for clarity

[kohanz]

You're basically asking: how do I do successful marketing, right? I don't have the answer to that, but I'd presume that despite many flashy resources out there claiming otherwise, there is no secret sauce, you have to put in the work of advertising (and finding out which channels work best for you), and of course the very important SEO.

By the way, I used your site and had a decent experience. I'm not a typical user of these, but it was interesting. You mentioned that other sites allow trolls to flood in - how do you prevent that?

[garagol]

I made three different algorithms dealing with spamming messages, spamming reports (repoting people unfairly), and when to ban someone depending on the reports gotten.

Contrary to most sites which do nothing (as to get the traffic from the trolls anyway), if someone is being intrusive, I ban him for a limited time, or the after two times, permanentely.

[afarrell]

Apply your site to the needs of a community who will have members that spread the word. For example, if you knew a community of people that worked from home wanted to work alongside like-minded folks. Or who wanted to work through a MOOC together. Or who wanted to move to a city and get matched up with a person from that city.

Find a reason why someone should post on /r/subreddit "hey, you should use x

[darrelld]

Well posting on HN is a good start.

You have a chicken and egg problem. I visited your site, sat in as a listener for minutes and no one showed up.

[spcelzrd]

All the best sites astroturfed in the early days.

[jcahill84]

This would be a great article to read... "Hackers Guide to Astroturfing Your Shiny New Product"

[wirddin]

Yep. I agree on this. Also, that's how you can possibly solve this chicken and egg problem.

[garagol]

Well, you see my point now :)

[chphipps]

Depending on where you live, throwing a launch party is a plausible idea that would raise awareness. If you live somewhere such as Boston or California, then start going out to start-up events.

Or you can focus on SEO. I would do both if it were me, let me know how it goes!

[imauld]

Try getting some marketing out on Imgur. I'm a fairly active member of that community and this seems like something the community there would like. Don't just spam them with posts though.

[tmaly]

read the book Will It Fly by Pat Flynn, he lays out a method for finding out how to reach your target market.

Also there is a book co-authored by the creator of DuckDuckGo called Traction that is very useful in testing out marketing channels.

[ddgflorida]

By mentioning your site in your question you just got a huge jump in traffic.