I'm a neuroscientist turned entrepreneur. I recently closed a F&F round to build a content marketing analytics software. AMA!

Hi Mark! I'm literally knee deep in building a predictive analytics "MVP." I put it in quotes because it turns out that predictive analytics is not simple at all. So even for an MVP, we had to invest a significant amount of manpower and money to get it to where it's analyzing and predicting. Because it's so data heavy, the database costs are high, even in a testing environment. The backend architecture is complex. We had to get a data scientist on board to build the models.

But to answer your question more directly, for a predictive analytics MVP to be worthy of funding (better yet, worthy of paying users) it has to at minimum make a prediction that a user can't make on their own, at least not without significant effort. I think if you're going after investment, the best bet is to invest in really unique intellectual property, making the software super robust and useful, rather than pretty or user friendly.

Hi Mathias! Sorry for taking so long to respond, I didn't see the notification before.

Opening a forum is good if you already have a decent following. Opening a forum to crickets is really depressing and what ends up happening is that you have to market your forum with more content marketing. But, if you have a buzzing following already of people who are really into your subject and like talking about it, a forum is a great way to boost your visibility in search engines. Plus because the content is user generated, it's cheap and maintenance is low. So, the answer is yes, if you've already got a good following and are looking to boost it. No, if no one is around already to use it. Hope that helps!

thanks!

A few ways.

• Demo your app in a series of videos and share those. Show different types of users how they might benefit from your product. That way, they're not relying entirely on social proof, but rather imagining what's possible.
• Produce easy-to-find content. People like to consume content by the company/creator before buying a product. It's a good trust-building technique. Show them you/your company is a thought leader in your space. (This takes time but it will give you the biggest returns)
• Invest time and energy into acquiring a just a few early customers. Send emails, connect on social, ask for a phone call. Spending a lot of time acquiring just a handful of early customers will get everything rolling. Why? Because you can ask for feedback and iterate; you can ask for testimonials to put on your landing page; you can ask for referrals, etc.

My very unsexy answer is that these things take a lot of time and a lot of effort to do right. It's super hard in the beginning, like pulling teeth. But once you get the ball rolling, there's a cumulative effect.

Hi! Congrats on getting started. Honestly, 1-2 downloads within a week of starting out is a really big accomplishment. These things take a lot of time, and more importantly, consistency, to build up. Unfortunately, there's no shortcut. Curating content to start with is a great strategy because it's easier than coming up with your own, plus you connect with the people you repost. My only advice is to stay super active and responsive on the platform - comment, like, tag other people. Build real and long lasting connections that will lead to recommendations in the future (ie, don't just tag someone once and be done with it, actually engage with them over time). Keep at it! :)