No one cared about my
stupid little startup(and they don’t care about yours either)<br />Matt Brezina<br />Co-founder, Xobni<br />Matt@xobni.com<br />Twitter: @brezina<br />

Xobni’s Path To 3 Million
Downloads(a 3.5 year journey)<br />Paid<br />Drivers<br />Nerd<br />Scarcity<br />Invite<br />Beta<br />Public Beta<br />Private Beta<br />Iteration<br />GA<br />Stealth<br />

Stealth<br /><ul><li> Only 50 users

Very boring website: No screenshots,
product descriptions

Traffic from blogging – problems
with email & entrepreneurship

Personal relationships with press and
demo under embargo</li></ul>(ask for help before you need it)<br />1.5 years<br />50<br />users<br />Paid<br />Drivers<br />Nerd<br />Scarcity<br />Invite<br />Beta<br />Public Beta<br />Private Beta<br />Iteration<br />GA<br />Stealth<br />

Private Beta<br /><ul><li> Launched at
TechCrunch50

“Too much demand”

Added 10k users in 1
day – everyone else sign-up</li></ul>2 months<br />10k<br />users<br />Paid<br />Drivers<br />Nerd<br />Scarcity<br />Invite<br />Beta<br />Public Beta<br />Private Beta<br />Iteration<br />GA<br />Stealth<br />

Nerd Scarcity<br /><ul><li> Leveraged excited
early adopters

Badge program

Added users from beta list
when we needed lab rats</li></ul>3 months<br />12k<br />users<br />Paid<br />Drivers<br />Nerd<br />Scarcity<br />Invite<br />Beta<br />Public Beta<br />Private Beta<br />Iteration<br />GA<br />Stealth<br />

Invite Beta<br /><ul><li> Users could
invite 5 friends

Maintained forgiveness of beta users

Nearly 100% conversion on clicked
invites (users were self selecting people who’d want xobni)</li></ul>3 months<br />50k<br />users<br />Paid<br />Drivers<br />Nerd<br />Scarcity<br />Invite<br />Beta<br />Public Beta<br />Private Beta<br />Iteration<br />GA<br />Stealth<br />

Iteration<br /><ul><li> Needed product/market fit
before exiting exclusivity

Wanted to accelerate WOM &
virality for upcoming pop

100k user beta list

Focused on performance, user ed
& virality</li></ul>3 months<br />60k<br />users<br />Paid<br />Drivers<br />Nerd<br />Scarcity<br />Invite<br />Beta<br />Public Beta<br />Private Beta<br />Iteration<br />GA<br />Stealth<br />

Public Beta<br /><ul><li> Hired PR
firm 6 weeks before launch

Officially launched Xobni open beta
in NYT

95k web visitors on day
1

70k visitors on day 2!!

Used demand for private beta
as proxy for need of a solution to info overload and the value of a people focused inbox</li></ul>1 year<br />1.5M<br />users<br />Paid<br />Drivers<br />Nerd<br />Scarcity<br />Invite<br />Beta<br />Public Beta<br />Private Beta<br />Iteration<br />GA<br />Stealth<br />

Exit Beta<br /><ul><li> Reliable product

With product/market fit

That encapsulated our vision</li></ul>Resulting in:<br
/><ul><li>Strong WOM

Official adoption in enterprises

The ability to start charging
</li></ul>3 <br />months<br />2M<br />users<br />Paid<br />Drivers<br />Nerd<br />Scarcity<br />Invite<br />Beta<br />Public Beta<br />Private Beta<br />Iteration<br />GA<br />Stealth<br />

Paid Drivers<br /><ul><li> Companies need
a Z-combinator

PR & virality aren’t predictably
scalable

Ain’t nothing wrong with spending
money to make money

Need business model to make
the sausage machine work</li></ul>6<br />months<br />3M<br />users<br />Paid<br />Drivers<br />Nerd<br />Scarcity<br />Invite<br />Beta<br />Public Beta<br />Private Beta<br />Iteration<br />GA<br />Stealth<br />

When we got PR help<br
/>In-house<br />&<br />PR Firm<br />PR Firm<br />PR Contractor<br />(but mostly me)<br />Me <br />Paid<br />Drivers<br />Nerd<br />Scarcity<br />Invite<br />Beta<br />Public Beta<br />Private Beta<br />Iteration<br />GA<br />Stealth<br />

No one cares about your
stupid little startup6 tips to make them care<br />

Tip 1.<br />Tie yourself to
a bigger trend<br />The web inside your inbox<br />Facebook crossing into the business world<br />Email is the oldest online social network<br />Enterprise software is now going bottoms up<br />Email overload is drowning the information worker<br />Microsoft sucks<br />

Case Study: Email Me Instead<br
/>I had 10k users and new blog/press relationships, before Xobni was even in public beta<br />

Tip 2<br />Take every opportunity
to meet a journalist in person<br />Get product feedback<br />Social events<br />Make introductions<br />Base your company where the media is<br />

Case Study: WSJ <br />

Tip 3.<br />Engage heavily with
users – positive WOM is even better than press coverage<br />

Case Study: Xobni<br />Our 5th
employee was customer support<br />Elite Alpha forum of 500 users <br />Phone call (and blog) with one user per week<br />Special twitter handle for customer support<br />Engineers do tech phone calls with users<br />We send out a lot of tshirts<br />

Tip 4.<br />Journalists are lazy.
Help them be lazy<br />

Case Study: Xobni.com<br />

Tip 5.<br />Be a source
of data<br />

Case Studies: Tivo, Trulia, Facebook<br
/>

Now, 3 million people know
about – and care about - my stupid little startup<br />Matt Brezina<br />Co-founder, Xobni<br />Matt@xobni.com<br />Twitter: @brezina<br />