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by jamesgagan
5284 days ago
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Yes, and then in the interview, Mr. Warner says something like "if people think they can just watch these interviews, take notes and then replicate the success, they are delusional". So he's pretty much admitting the article is pure link bait and there's not much chance another startup will have the same luck. Bo Fishback himself says in the interview that it's unlikely it could be replicated.
The thing is, I actually do want to be able to watch, take notes and repeat the steps other founders used to get traffic and users. So give me realistic and concrete examples of what is possible for the average founder to do to get users.
For example, the other day I went on Yahoo Answers and answered a bunch of questions with links to my website. It was boring and tedious, but the next day I had about 100 referrals to my site from Yahoo Answers. That's the kind of thing I want to learn about - it's simple enough, repeatable and it works. Just doesn't make for sensational headlines. |
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- Bo got well-known backers because he did something that many other founders put down -- he got a job. He worked for the Kauffman Fund, which introduced him to the startup community's founders, investors and other supporters. He built up a reputation by helping the community. That helped him get top investors and supporters.
- When some of his famous backers tweeted links to his site, he converted those hits into email subscribers so he could build a relationship with people who were interested in Zaarly's vision of the world.
- He converted early fans into communities. These communities met both online (Facebook) and offline (meetups) and helped introduce others to Zaarly.
- Zaarly cultivated evangelists, some of those evangelists came up with promotion ideas that Zaarly's team couldn't have come up with on its own. One guy lived on nothing but what he could order on Zaarly, as a way of dramatizing how helpful the service could be.
- To ensure that new users who wanted to hire help on Zaarly got service, it partnered with other companies. At SXSW, for example, they teamed up with rickshaw drivers and paid them to fulfill requests. (If anyone reading this is trying to build an online marketplace and is having trouble solving the chicken and egg issue, I think our discussion of how Bo activated his marketplace through partnerships like this will really help.)
I don't want to turn this comment into a rehash of every point in the interview, but I promise that I care about useful tacts and ideas. I give you my word that I go after them and pack them into my interviews.
That headline is backed by hours of research before the interview, and a mutual goal with Bo during the interview.