One of the biggest challenges in building a startup is acquiring users. How can you convince people to use your product? Why would they choose your product, over the dozens (often hundreds) of other similar products?
– You build their trust.
– Yes, but how?
– You talk to them. You tell them a story. You tell them your story. Better yet, you tell them their own story. And you build an audience. An audience that starts looking forward to your stories. An audience that gradually learns to trust you. An audience that gets excited when you start talking about your product, and can’t wait to use it.
It’s a tried and tested model, and everyone in the industry knows that’s the best way to acquire users.
When I started building French Jobs For Me and Adaptiv.me, I knew I had to start with building an audience. And so I followed this article from Startup Grind. The key takeaways (that I was also able to successfully implement):
Know who you’re trying to reach:
It was easy identifying my audience for French Jobs For Me. They were right there at my doorstep, and I knew exactly what they wanted. But that wasn’t the case with Adaptiv. So while my co-founder built the MVP, I hunkered down to create audience personas, and choose our first niche, starting with basic demographics going deeper into their interests, habits and lifestyle.
Involve your audience in your content:
This had me confused initially, but I hit gold when I started sharing success stories of people who had leveraged their knowledge of French to find career opportunities. On Adaptiv, we’ve started a new series of articles featuring adaptive people.
Keep them coming back:
The challenge of creating something that is interesting and valuable enough for readers to come back has kept me on my toes: unique vocabulary lists, and language advice on French Jobs For Me, industry insights and career advice on Adaptiv, that’s not a repetition of everything else that’s already been said a million times by everyone from NY Times to the latest startup on the block..
PlainGeets 