[robryan]

It takes time. Some kind of competitive advantage over everything else in the marketplace will help to. People need a reason to bet on your company which overcomes the risk in instability.

As time passes and your service stays solid more people will come on board. Something like github is a good example. I doubt many big companies would have considered relying on them early on, but their track record has changed that now.

[crag]

Yeah but, Github is a different sort of product. You don't lose much if it shuts down (assuming you have your code). You can push your code someplace else.

[robryan]

I disagree, maybe that might have been a point that allowed more people to give it a try in the early days. A lot of companies have integrated APIs and built workflows around the github specific way of doing things.

[mibbitier]

Surely most of the value of using github is the web UI?

[frabcus]

You're totally locked into the issue tracker.

[pbiggar]

I really meant my point to be a counter to its parent.

But since we're on the topic, presenting social proof is also pretty useful. Show customers that people know, show the press that featured you, show them who you are, who your advisors/investors are, show them whose tweeted about you.

(Maybe writing this will be a catalyst to take my own advice for CircleCi)

[ricardobeat]

But that's hacking trust. It's opposite to just being honest and having a publicized contingency plan, or open-source code.

edit (since I can't reply): logic being that social proof is good for business, but has no substance. It doesn't make it any better for users when it comes to shutting down.

[dchuk]

The substance of social proof is that it shows that a lot of people have faith in your product and trust you enough to pay you to use it. It's not just a gimmick, it's a concrete psychological trigger.

[ricardobeat]

Yes, of course social proof has substance as marketing strategy. But gaining trust is orthogonal to actually being reliable. (this is still about the top comment)

[dchuk]

I disagree about trust and reliability being orthogonal. Unreliable products burn their bridges rapidly. Social proof can take many forms, from raw total user numbers to user testimonials. You're not going to collect testimonials if you have a shitty product.

[pbiggar]

I would like to hear the logic behind that assertion.

[heretohelp]

>I really meant my point to be a counter to its parent.

I don't believe I've ever seen you do anything else on HN. I know you to be a reliable person, no reason to think you'd suddenly get fickle and take something I said seriously.

Do you mean to tell me that if somebody rolled up with a check written out for your price you wouldn't light the servers on fire and run for the hills? Realistically the only people who are cared after in any acquisition are the investors so that no bad-blood is in the water for the next acqui-hire. Customers are always left in the dark.

If you want any credibility to the contrary, you'd better start presenting your customers with an SLA that guarantees a detailed transition with a timeline in the case of company failure/acquisition.

Or you can just play PR games. Whatever bare minimum your sense of honesty necessitates.

I'd rather just sit on a happy customer base, but I never thought I'd become a millionaire anyway.

I just want to help people.

[pbiggar]

> check written out for your price you wouldn't light the servers on fire

> I'd rather just sit on a happy customer base

So everyone else is just in it for the money, but not you? If you can believe it about yourself, perhaps you'd be willing to extend some of that credulity to others?

[heretohelp]

The track record of everyone else is very poor :)