Kicked out of FB group! Fuuuu. Back to drawing board. How do you get first users?
I was a long time member of a fb group for an online course platform. The group has about 20k members. I like the platform and community. One post in the group recently was a feature request from a user that was incredibly similar to what I am trying to build in my side project. So after a few days I got enough courage and wrote to that person and 5 others who commented on the post asking about what they wanted and telling them about my idea. One person wrote back 20 minutes later and said they are the Australian representative for that platform, don't write to other members, and kicked me out of the group. Great. Felt horrible. Epic fail first try. Should have known the rules, but felt pretty harmless and I was respectful. Anyway, thought I had it right- had a specific niche, was writing to specific people within that niche, think I understand there problems and trying to solve them. But let's see. Will maybe just run a few fb ads and see what happens. Start again. Any other user fails first up?
Group owners are pretty territorial--they want to sell to those group members, not enable other sellers. Better to make your connections in the groups and then engage with them via other means. Post comments that don't include and ask or a sell but intrigue members enough that they check out your profile and follow you.
Thanks yeah I agree- FB group owners have worked hard to build their audience, so totally get that they are protective of it. Good idea to contact them outside, should have done that in retrospect, but will from now.
Don’t feel bad! Things like this happen when you’re an entrepreneur. You gotta put yourself out there. Just keep at it man.
Thanks Shane, positivity is super helpful.
Some things fail, some things succeed.
Start with 3 ways of getting your early users - don't just depend on a single FB group/page/whatever. If one doesn't work, go to the next one. Stick to it for a while, understand if it's a good way to get early users. If it is, continue on that path. If it's not, continue on a new path.
If you want to get organic new users (so not spending any money but rather time), find places on Reddit, Quora, and forums where they hang out.
Seems like you learned a lot from just being in that group - so being kicked out of it seems like a shame but in the end, you got a lot out of it. Since you know more about your audience, you also learned where else they hung out.
So look for those websites/offline places. Reach out to people by email, follow them on Twitter, etc.
One door has closed, there are hundreds of other doors to open.
Thanks Frank,
Some great ideas. I've always struggled with reddit. I am not sure why, just kind of get the same feeling I do when I am at home watching TV at 3 in the afternoon- it's interesting enough to keep me watching, but I know I should be doing other stuff.
But I agree it's a great place to build an audience, along with quora too. I have to try and do that better.
Yeah definitely learnt something from being in the group, and will try again. I am member of another similar group so not all is lost, and will also reach out by email, which I didn't really think to do previously, so given me a few things to do.
Matt
Search both Reddit and Quora for mentions of the tool your app will complement. You may find opportunities to establish yourself as a subject matter expert.
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